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kyoryu
2022-04-25, 01:01 PM
We keep talking about sandbox and railroad/linear games. But I think maybe that's not the key point.

Maybe it's "authored" vs. "emergent".

In an authored game, the GM or module author write the story of what will be happening. This doesn't mean it's exactly linear, though it can be. There can be optional branches, there can be some shuffling of what order things are done in, etc. But the key is that all the things that are done, all of the situations handled are things that were predetermined.

An emergent game, on the other hand, doesn't have that. Sure, there can be some initial elements, but what the players do is fundamentally unknown, and how the world changes in response to their actions is also fundamentally unknown. Players can do basically whatever they want.

This doesn't mean that authored games have no agency, though they have very limited or no agency in specific areas - usually in terms of what specific encounters/scenes happen. Sure, you can change some aspects of hte result, or you can have side-effects, often significant, on the world, but you're really going to mostly go along the same path as others - you might do things in a different order, or skip a few things, but you're mostly going to do the same things.

This has advantages! Since the GM knows what the players are going to be doing, the GM can prep very cool, detailed, prep-intensive things for the players to do - custom actions, cool terrain, super balanced encounters, etc. And if the players are mostly concerned about that kind of stuff, it's a great way for the GM to give them what they want.

But fans of emergent games want different things - they want their decisions to matter. They want the game to take on a different shape than it would have if they had made other choices. They want to be able to solve the problems their own way. They want to do things that the GM didn't plan for, and they want to make that take the "story"/game in a way that the GM could not have predicted.

This is great for players for whom the major point is "how do I react to this situation". It's not as great for players who really want the resolution of the encounter to be the major focus, since by definition it's not going to result in as detailed/designed/tuned encounters.

I think this could be more useful, and I tried to keep the distinction as neutral, and point out the value of each side of this, and how they mutually oppose each other - the design of each serves certain purposes, but makes the opposite style harder to achieve.

kyoryu
2022-04-25, 01:02 PM
Is a dungeon emergent or authored?

Maybe

A dungeon could be either - early megadungeons were highly emergent - any given session, the players would choose what to do and where to go. And while the dungeon and its contents were set, how the dungeon and its denizens responded wasn't.

A lot of more modern dungeons, however, are more authored - individual rooms are individual encounters, and have little effect on each other.

KorvinStarmast
2022-04-25, 01:39 PM
Maybe it's "authored" vs. "emergent".
Interesting way to frame it, but there's still a middle ground somewhere, isn't there?
Maybe, "it's still a continuum, not an either/or choice" is a better way to get my thought across.

kyoryu
2022-04-25, 01:57 PM
Interesting way to frame it, but there's still a middle ground somewhere, isn't there?
Maybe, "it's still a continuum, not an either/or choice" is a better way to get my thought across.

I'm not sure.

I do think they're fundamentally different, and I think every attempt at a "continuum" has basically been "I'm going to give you some leeway in a fundamentally authored game". Which.... is still an authored game, from the perspective of someone that prefers emergent games.

So, I think there's a fundamental difference. Either you know what's going to happen, or you don't. In Mass Effect 1, everybody's game ends up facing down Saren on the Citadel. In Civilization, everybody's game ends entirely differently, and different events will happen. Mass Effect has a cool story and setpiece encounters, Civilization has an unpredictable situation where your decisions ripple out and have long-lasting repercussions.

I mean, you can have elements that are authored in an emergent game, but those are usually primarily the initial situation. Like, running an emergent game boils down to "here's the initial situation, go!" while running an authored game is "here's the content I wrote, let's go through it." As soon as you start saying "the players have to go here, then here, then here" it's not really emergent any more. And as soon as you say "I don't know what's going to happen" you lose the prep abilities, and the story-writing of the authored style.

Like, for me to author stuff, I have to know the state of the world well enough to do that at some point in the future. And as soon as that's true, it's not emergent. And if it's emergent, then I don't really know the state well enough to predict it and write stuff for it.

Maybe there's some kind of middle ground? But I think that the goals are pretty opposite of each other, the work to run them is pretty different from each other, and it's perfectly okay to recognize that these are very different playstyles with different success criteria. What doesn't really interest me is "how do we make authored styles more appealing to emergent players" because, from my perspective, I just don't want authored styles, and want that respected.

Thrudd
2022-04-25, 02:05 PM
I think it's possible to alternate between them - that's not really a implying a continuum, but it is possible to have a game that can be satisfying to both types of players, as long as they are willing to compromise and share time a bit. You can have authored adventure paths happen as events occasionally in a game that is otherwise run as emergent. It would be "fair" to all, so long as an equal number of sessions are spent playing in each style.

KorvinStarmast
2022-04-25, 02:13 PM
I find this insistence on "it is either or" to be a bit too restrictive ... but I still like your framing. The Civ example is a good one about ripple effects, even if it isn't a role playing game.

Vahnavoi
2022-04-25, 02:15 PM
A distinction between authored and emergent elements exists, but in practice trying to build a dichtomy around that doesn't work. Most games and virtually all open-ended games have both types of elements; only very simple or tighly scripted games have no emergent game play.

icefractal
2022-04-25, 02:16 PM
I'm not sure I'm getting the classification here. What would you call these?

#1: The game is a sandbox - a setting that players can travel to any part of, ally with or oppose almost any group, take on mercenary jobs or not, help people or not, seek out treasures or not. However, there's an agreement that at the end of a session, the players decide what they're going to do during the next session, and they stick to that. And that's because the GM will then prep the appropriate material between sessions.
So the players have a lot of freedom on a macro-level, but during a session most things that happen will be pre-written by the GM rather than improv.

#2: The GM is using a huge existing piece of material, like Ptolus or a mega-dungeon. Within that, the players can do whatever they want to, but they can't decide to leave the city entirely (well they can, but it means the end of the campaign).

#3: The GM has a definite plot in mind, with a beginning, certain milestones, and a pre-defined ending. However, the game is run in a very improv style, and between those fixed points almost anything can happen. The GM uses subtle railroading / quantum ogres to make all the infinite possible paths converge on those fixed points, but does almost no actual "authoring" of material - the entire campaign notes fit on a single page.

Satinavian
2022-04-25, 02:51 PM
Maybe there's some kind of middle ground? But I think that the goals are pretty opposite of each other, the work to run them is pretty different from each other, and it's perfectly okay to recognize that these are very different playstyles with different success criteria. What doesn't really interest me is "how do we make authored styles more appealing to emergent players" because, from my perspective, I just don't want authored styles, and want that respected.

I do think there is a middle ground and i also think most of the games i have been part of in recent years are there. That is why i am sceptical it is more useful than sandbox vs railroading was.

You say in authored games the plot is basically predecided by the GM and in emergend games it simply is not. But what i experience the most is that GM do have a general idea of the potential plot and that is what is prepared best, even with scenes, but pretty much nothing of it is guaranteed and the story can go elsewhere and suddenly need improvisation. But often the GM just guessed right and most of the preparation can be used. The better the GM knows their players, the more often that happens. But ending up in completely unexpected developmets and results is not really rare either.

So both extremes don't really fit. The GM prepares mostly as for "authored" but instead of using railroading to make the prepared plot happen, the plot is propagated and indeed made by the "emergent" method and allowed to end up anywhere. Though often exactly where the GM planned.

NichG
2022-04-25, 04:25 PM
It does feel like most of the mixtures are more about one thing at one scale and another thing at another scale. The binary view is more natural to me if we specify what scale we're talking about, especially if it's an asymptotic one (the arc of an entire campaign + conclusion + topic/goals = asymptotically large; individual character decisions/moments = asymptotically small).

Given the scale, the natural question to ask is then - looking at a summary of events limited in detail to only the scale you're talking about, would you get a different summary if the game had been played by different players?

So I feel like part of the reason the mixtures feel unsatisfying is they're usually proposed in a 'up to X, you decide, above X I decide' way - for any finite X, if you want to control the X->infinity limit it's going to be unsatisfying.

Do games where e.g. there are a small number of authored sequences (small scales can be authored) but whether they get triggered or not totally and only depends on the emergent parts - e.g. nothing that happens within an authored part automatically has consequences beyond the players' choices that led there in the first place - feel authored or emergent?

King of Nowhere
2022-04-25, 05:21 PM
I do think this catches better the difference between sandbox and railroad, and it's probably a more accurate way of putting it.


As for the matter of prepared content vs improvisation, my table solved it by asking the players what they plan on doing next at the end of the session.
this way, the dm has a week to prepare in detail a reaction to what the players freely decided to do. it's the better of both worlds

Quertus
2022-04-25, 07:50 PM
I don't think that the useful version of these terms describes "Civilization" as "Emergent".

What?

Yeah, all of Civilizations possible endings are pre-scripted. I can't win Civilization by banishing the other civilizations to another dimension, or by owning a monopoly on fish, or any other user defined objective, without some serious mods / hacking.

In Civilization, the set of end goals are already Authored. Even though each individual game will play out differently in many ways, I can already tell before you start what your set of possible end conditions will look like.

So, for me, for what I care about between "Authored" vs "Emergent", Civilization is Authored. It does not give me the freedom to choose my end state.

How does this relate to Linear vs Sandbox(y) vs Railroading?

As I understand the terms, Linear and Linear (Branching), the scenes are pre-built. Like a module. You can transition between them in a linear or branching fashion, but the scenes (and transitions) are pretty well established.

Railroading is when the GM negates the logical consequences of a PC's actions in order to prevent the game from leaving the established / expected scenes and transitions.

The more Sandboxy something is, the more open to user definition the scenes and transitions are. A Sandbox is more about providing scenarios and content than having expected flows / outcomes.

Which... sounds like Linear maps to Authored, and Sandbox(y) to Emergent.

Am I missing anything here?

Olffandad
2022-04-25, 08:37 PM
I think both of these ideas are useful tools in a GM or storyteller's toolbox and should be viewed as a useful scale, not an absolute.

A new GM may need an "authored" pre-written scenario to learn GM skills, or new players may need simpler, controlled adventure content for example.

My group is somewhat passive, so they have struggled to find footing when the plot or missions aren't laid out clearly. Sometimes they aren't so engaged or don't have time or creative energy free to engage in a collaborative process, also.

Of course, a GM may want to prepare maps, lore, and encounters so they don't have to be totally pulling content out of thin air. Not every GM is a perfect improvisation machine.

On the other hand, too much preparation can be a straitjacket - for instance, my DM ran battles with complex mixes of enemies, height and distance where the negotiations of distance/spell effects took much time. I would have used a more narrative mode, but she was more comfortable with the content and method she had planned.

She enjoyed creating detailed maps and setting up encounters very exactly, so we were probably going to ride the bus to all of the planned encounters.

My own personal interpretation is a mix of these concepts - I would tend to think out the main points of an encounter and the participants, then think through the most likely scenarios of things, and use that to inform any deviations from my main plan while trying to honor the players' interpretation of what I presented.

The exact balance of authorship to emergent content will vary with the players and DMs strengths and interests.

Lord Raziere
2022-04-25, 08:39 PM
I don't think that the useful version of these terms describes "Civilization" as "Emergent".


Okay look:

1. first of all Civilization is not a ttrpg, its a strategy game, different genre, not really relevant to a discussion about ttrpgs.

2. if it was, its a videogame, you can't reasonably expect the same level of flexibility as a human mind. having five victory condition is more than most videogames ever give you. most only have one.

3. it is in fact emergent, because you don't know which civilization is going to win or how. the fact that it has five set victory condition is a luxury for the medium and offers a lot of ways to play this out. you can be conquest and destroy all over nations, you can be diplomatic to win without destroying other nations, you can win a cultural victory by making your culture dominant again without destroy other nations, you can do a science victory to simply colonize another planet before everyone else, guaranteeing you will always be a step ahead of them on the space race, and a religious victory similar much to the cultural one, makes sure you have a dominant belief winning out. and since its multiplayer, the actual winner depends on emergent interactions between those players trying to win over the other, and thus could depend on a number of factors.

4. No one is talking about civilization, you just came in and suddenly started talking about it out of nowhere as if it matters. Only you are talking about this, and to somehow make this discussion about a completely unrelated game I don't think is in the spirit of the discussion. don't talk about oranges when everyone is discussing apples.

Cluedrew
2022-04-25, 08:43 PM
I'm not sure. [...] So, I think there's a fundamental difference.I'm going to actually going to argue that there is a spectrum (perhaps not a continuous continuum) with options between the two extremes. In fact although "linear campaign"* might be one extreme in terms of how authored it is, while still definitely being a table-top role-playing game, but on the other hand I wouldn't call "sandbox" the opposite extreme.

Although, sandboxes are definitely emergent, in the archetypical sandbox (or maybe just a CRPG-like sandbox) the content is authored. The setting exists before the characters/players interact with it and hence is authored. Yet how they interact with it and in what order is very open ended and because of this new experiences/combinations can emerge from the game that were not planned, were not authored, and that is a fundamentally different experience than even a linear campaign with branching paths.

Yet I would argue that I have played and run games that are even less authored. Well we still made them up, in fact we make them up during the game. And by "we" I do mean the table, the players usually participate in this indirectly but it still isn't a sandbox because the GM has prepared toys ahead of time. They are created from the character's drives and motives** and it is something that is also fundamentally different than a sandbox.

So there are more than two fundamental structures, possibly more than three even, and as Thrudd and NichG have pointed out, you can splice these together in different ways.

* With may or may not be railroading if we want to get into that divide.
** I can go into more detail if people like but really all that matters is A) it is a legitimate way to play and B) it is fundamentally different than both a linear adventure and a sandbox.

To Lord Raziere: kyoryu brought up Civilisation up in the post I quoted from. I don't have much to say about the other 3 points either way.

Saintheart
2022-04-25, 09:07 PM
We keep talking about sandbox and railroad/linear games. But I think maybe that's not the key point.

Maybe it's "authored" vs. "emergent".

In an authored game, the GM or module author write the story of what will be happening. This doesn't mean it's exactly linear, though it can be. There can be optional branches, there can be some shuffling of what order things are done in, etc. But the key is that all the things that are done, all of the situations handled are things that were predetermined.

An emergent game, on the other hand, doesn't have that. Sure, there can be some initial elements, but what the players do is fundamentally unknown, and how the world changes in response to their actions is also fundamentally unknown. Players can do basically whatever they want.

This doesn't mean that authored games have no agency, though they have very limited or no agency in specific areas - usually in terms of what specific encounters/scenes happen. Sure, you can change some aspects of hte result, or you can have side-effects, often significant, on the world, but you're really going to mostly go along the same path as others - you might do things in a different order, or skip a few things, but you're mostly going to do the same things.

This has advantages! Since the GM knows what the players are going to be doing, the GM can prep very cool, detailed, prep-intensive things for the players to do - custom actions, cool terrain, super balanced encounters, etc. And if the players are mostly concerned about that kind of stuff, it's a great way for the GM to give them what they want.

But fans of emergent games want different things - they want their decisions to matter. They want the game to take on a different shape than it would have if they had made other choices. They want to be able to solve the problems their own way. They want to do things that the GM didn't plan for, and they want to make that take the "story"/game in a way that the GM could not have predicted.

This is great for players for whom the major point is "how do I react to this situation". It's not as great for players who really want the resolution of the encounter to be the major focus, since by definition it's not going to result in as detailed/designed/tuned encounters.

I think this could be more useful, and I tried to keep the distinction as neutral, and point out the value of each side of this, and how they mutually oppose each other - the design of each serves certain purposes, but makes the opposite style harder to achieve.


I prefer to analyse this whole problem through the MDA Model of videogame design, which basically says: there are essentially - but not exclusively - 8 kinds of fun/enjoyment that people look for in playing games (https://theangrygm.com/gaming-for-fun-part-1-eight-kinds-of-fun/). Two of these types are narrative - the satisfaction of experiencing a well-told story as it unfolds - and discovery - the satisfaction of exploring and learning new things, colouring in a blank piece on the map. And a third, which clouds the whole thing, is Expression, or flat-out pleasure from expressing yourself creatively.

Again, this is not to say that people necessarily want only one kind of fun. Indeed people often don't know what they want, that's one of the curses of our two-speed brains. Often people want several kinds of fun at once. TTRPGs often supply a dose of several.

I think this is where the fundamental screaming arguments about 'railroading DM' versus 'lazy improv DM' come from. It comes down to people arguing about the kinds of fun they like to have, and projecting those likes onto what a TTRPG "should" be or whether a TTRPG is a "real" TTRPG if it isn't delivering primary Narrative versus primary Discovery.

Overlaid onto that is a fundamental difference in preference by way of DM preparation. Simplistically: you're either a DM who thinks their created world should exist in heavy detail ahead of interaction with the players, and continue to follow those pre-formed principles of existence when the players aren't directly interacting with it ... or you're a DM who doesn't.

Putting it by way of an exaggerated stereotype, DMs fall on a simple continuum. At one end are the frustrated authors who write fanfiction for their parties of PCs. At the other end are frustrated stage directors whose actors cease to exist once they're behind the curtain and not visible to anyone in the audience, all that really matters is what's going on right at this moment in the game. You're either trying to play in the game as a player with everyone bar the PCs as your characters, or you're a (overly?) detached observer who sees themselves as delivering an experience to the players.

At least in third edition, my personal view is that WOTC devoted a hell of a lot of time to the first end of the continuum and little time to the second. There are tables and tables in DMGs and across sourcebooks which, if followed religiously, would demand a DM create massive verisimilitude that the players will never notice and never even bother with. And it is apparent that the utility of following these tables and tables is vanishingly low to pointless.

This is a problem. A very big problem. Because, especially in a world which is getting better and better at enhancing sensory pleasure and automating complex experiences, people as a group are gravitating to experiences that require them to exert as little effort as possible to obtain pleasure. Complexity rings on certain of the 8 pleasure types (challenge, notably) but it's death on types such as fantasy and submission, which videogames can offer and unquestionably are winning at when you compare the size of the TTRPG industry to the videogame industry.

I only speak for myself, but I don't think I am speaking radically or uniquely saying there's a strong vein of DM advice that says: never prepare more than one session ahead. There's all sort of reasons given for that advice, but one of its virtues is that it avoids DM burnout. And DM burnout has to be avoided if the TTRPG industry is going to survive. As I've said before elsewhere, most games can survive the loss of a player, but not many games survive the loss of a DM. And the problem with mountains of material trying to make a DM a player in the game rather than the key person delivering the experience to the players push hard against that sort of vital advice.

And please: don't quote me Ernest Hemingway's 'iceberg' theory of fiction writing and argue that your game is more plausible if you prepare all this absolute manure ahead of a session. Not unless you're writing a novel, which you aren't, because you're trying to run a TTRPG, where you will have to adapt and you will have no room to allow interesting inconsistencies to drive better emergent stories. TTRPGs and passive fiction reading are vastly different forms of entertainment, and it's like nails down a chalkboard when someone starts quoting three-act structure in reference to RPGs. Not because it's an invalid pursuit if your kind of fun is Narrative, but because that stupid advice has been more responsible for more DMNPCs destroying entire campaigns than any other.

Like it or not, most players of D&D are not experienced grognards. The guys who wrote third edition, fourth, and fifth all express either openly or by their actions that the rules (and modules) were designed for game store casuals, teenagers, and beginners. And therefore the authors injected huge amounts of material to try and suck the DM into the world of fantasy as well, because that's what all the tables and tables of stuff down to goddamn demographics of entire cities seem to have been intended for. The problem with it being that those beginners, casuals, and teenagers became veterans, regulars, and thirtysomethings who mistook something to draw them in as something that couldn't be dispensed with and therefore to be pushed on new, incoming DMs 'rediscovering' older editions. The world's changed, attention spans have shortened faster than the odds of Elon Musk acquiring Twitter, you can't throw 300-page books of dense two-column text at DMs anymore without really thinking about what you're expecting the DM to do with it or to use it or without bearing in mind the person you're throwing it at can likely only concentrate for 160 characters at a time. People whinge that fifth edition is too simplistic, I agree but I also shrug, because that's the world we live in and increasing complexity of a system actually only makes it easier to abuse or break: witness third edition.

When you step back and look at an adventure from the point of view of asking what kind of enjoyment is this thing trying to deliver to its players, the analysis of whether it is "railroading" or not becomes a lot simpler. Or at least less emotional. You also get a better idea, I think, of what needs to be done to the adventure to shape it to address given kinds of fun.

Published adventure modules, by which I mean the big WOTC ones at least from third edition onward, appear to try to be as generic as possible. They'll lean on narrative because, like it or not, in our present world it's the easiest form of adventure for a brand new DM to run. Their narrative direction is clear so a casual DM can pick it up and run it as written without the whole session (necessarily) collapsing.

D&D might have been built as an improv game in its early editions. It might have been built as a game where the primary focus was discovery and exploration, i.e. the great gonfalon of OSR. That's life. Third edition came out, massive customisation (and therefore attachment to) characters happened, and clear narrative-based modules came out to support it. The miracle is that third edition and the later editions can still be run as improv-heavy games, but one just needs to recognise the bias and look up the tools to help you overcome them.

For clarity, I define 'railroading' pretty narrowly. The basic sequence of any RPG comes down to:

1. Introduce the scene.
2. Invite the players to act.
3. Adjudicate the outcome of their actions.
4. If the scene isn't over, return to step 2.
5. If the scene is over, transition to the next scene and return to step 1.


"Railroading" is, to me, removing step (2) from the equation, whether explicitly or implicitly. And it usually becomes apparent in how step (3) comes out. If there is only one way a given encounter can play out, then there is no actual encounter. There is no invitation to the players to act. There might be an invitation to spectate - most archetypically and obviously in the case of the party forced to watch as the DMNPC screams "Witness Me!" before exploding the dragon with their staff of awesomeness - but no invitation to act. And is it not the case that DMNPCs show up more frequently in the type of DM leaning on the first end of the spectrum I've identified, i.e. the frustrated authors? Choice is the engine of all roleplaying games, without it there is no actual game. This does not mean that every choice is always available, because unlimited choice is the same as no choice, but there surely is no RPG - or at least, no real encounter, only description/fluff text - if no choice can be made.

Outside of this, I don't define an adventure with a strong, very defined narrative sequence as "railroading", or at least I regard it as a sarcastic joke by the players. A game built primarily to induce narrative is not of itself a railroad; that only happens when the players have no capacity to act in reality. And yeah, that's a balancing act, but nobody ever said DMing was easy.

This does go both ways to some extent.

I have a corollary to the party that feels cheated when their DM said they'd be getting a sandbox and instead they got a host of DMNPCs with the party expected to be its cheer squad.

It's when the DM asks for players interested in an open world sandbox; gets a bevy of players who all swear black and blue they're looking for a good open world and want to play an open world; works up a world; works up a list of things the players can do (adding every two paragraphs or so that there's all sorts of other things they might do, they have only to think and ask) ... and then sits back as the players make like Buridan's Ass the moment they enter Medieval Town #1 and get a list of things they can do. People are just the worst.

kyoryu
2022-04-25, 11:43 PM
A distinction between authored and emergent elements exists, but in practice trying to build a dichtomy around that doesn't work. Most games and virtually all open-ended games have both types of elements; only very simple or tighly scripted games have no emergent game play.

It's not the elements that determine if a game is authored or emergent - it's the path that the players take. You can have as well-defined of a setting as you want, if the players are still largely in control of how things play out, it's an emergent game.

To go back to the Civilization example, you could take a saved game on the first turn and hand it to five different players - each one would likely get a different game, and often significantly different. The "history" of their events would read very differently. And yet all of the elements of the game are set in that saved game.

OTOH, you can take those same five players and have them play Mass Effect - and they're still going to hit exactly the same major beats along their path. Some of the side effects may differ (do they save the Rachni or kill them?), but they're going to go on the same major five or six missions, and they'll share a subset of the side quests. Some of the orders may change, but they're essentially going through the same sequence of events, even if shuffled around a bit.


I'm not sure I'm getting the classification here. What would you call these?

#1: The game is a sandbox - a setting that players can travel to any part of, ally with or oppose almost any group, take on mercenary jobs or not, help people or not, seek out treasures or not. However, there's an agreement that at the end of a session, the players decide what they're going to do during the next session, and they stick to that. And that's because the GM will then prep the appropriate material between sessions.
So the players have a lot of freedom on a macro-level, but during a session most things that happen will be pre-written by the GM rather than improv.

Probably emergent.


#2: The GM is using a huge existing piece of material, like Ptolus or a mega-dungeon. Within that, the players can do whatever they want to, but they can't decide to leave the city entirely (well they can, but it means the end of the campaign).

100% emergent. It is not the presence of prepared elements that makes a game emergent. It's the presence of a set path for the players to follow.


#3: The GM has a definite plot in mind, with a beginning, certain milestones, and a pre-defined ending. However, the game is run in a very improv style, and between those fixed points almost anything can happen. The GM uses subtle railroading / quantum ogres to make all the infinite possible paths converge on those fixed points, but does almost no actual "authoring" of material - the entire campaign notes fit on a single page.

Has a game like this ever existed? Still, it's authored - the path is set, and nothing is going to change that, even if there's some leeway between the points.



You say in authored games the plot is basically predecided by the GM and in emergend games it simply is not. But what i experience the most is that GM do have a general idea of the potential plot and that is what is prepared best, even with scenes, but pretty much nothing of it is guaranteed and the story can go elsewhere and suddenly need improvisation. But often the GM just guessed right and most of the preparation can be used. The better the GM knows their players, the more often that happens. But ending up in completely unexpected developmets and results is not really rare either.

That sounds like a very common style of primarily authored content. That may be your experience as to the most common style, but it's not how I or a great number of others run games.

And honestly this may be a big part of the issue - I think a lot of people (not necessarily you) assume that certain things are just part of how games are run, and haven't had experience in more emergent game styles. So it's hard to have that conversation when there's no shared experience. I see this all the time in the strawman of "if you don't railroad there's no plot, and I'd rather have a plot, so railroading is necessary".


It does feel like most of the mixtures are more about one thing at one scale and another thing at another scale. The binary view is more natural to me if we specify what scale we're talking about, especially if it's an asymptotic one (the arc of an entire campaign + conclusion + topic/goals = asymptotically large; individual character decisions/moments = asymptotically small).

Given the scale, the natural question to ask is then - looking at a summary of events limited in detail to only the scale you're talking about, would you get a different summary if the game had been played by different players?

Yes, exactly.


So I feel like part of the reason the mixtures feel unsatisfying is they're usually proposed in a 'up to X, you decide, above X I decide' way - for any finite X, if you want to control the X->infinity limit it's going to be unsatisfying.

Usually the "mixtures" offer some leeway of freedom within a larger context. The problem is that the set nature of the larger context is exactly the thing that people that prefer emergent games are trying to avoid.

Note that I'm not using words like "good" or "bad". These are just preferences. But they're valid preferences.


Do games where e.g. there are a small number of authored sequences (small scales can be authored) but whether they get triggered or not totally and only depends on the emergent parts - e.g. nothing that happens within an authored part automatically has consequences beyond the players' choices that led there in the first place - feel authored or emergent?

I'd say if the overall experience is still emergent, it's probably emergent? I dunno. It's very non-concrete.


I do think this catches better the difference between sandbox and railroad, and it's probably a more accurate way of putting it.

Thank you. I'm trying to hit on the key parts of what "sandbox" people really want.


As for the matter of prepared content vs improvisation, my table solved it by asking the players what they plan on doing next at the end of the session.
this way, the dm has a week to prepare in detail a reaction to what the players freely decided to do. it's the better of both worlds

This was proposed above. I'm not sure how I'd feel about it in practice.


I don't think that the useful version of these terms describes "Civilization" as "Emergent".

What?

Yeah, all of Civilizations possible endings are pre-scripted. I can't win Civilization by banishing the other civilizations to another dimension, or by owning a monopoly on fish, or any other user defined objective, without some serious mods / hacking.

It's still a computer game. There are limitations.

Even if there are only certain win conditions, different players will go through very different paths to get to whatever end they choose to pursue, even starting from the same seed/save game. One player may war with England, make peace with India, and so on and so forth, while another player just huddles up and works on their tech tree. The "stories" of their game will be


In Civilization, the set of end goals are already Authored. Even though each individual game will play out differently in many ways, I can already tell before you start what your set of possible end conditions will look like.

This feels very disingenous to me. Computer games have inherent limitations, and if you can't see the difference between Civ and Mass Effect in terms of how emergent/plotted they are, then you're willfully ignoring them.


Which... sounds like Linear maps to Authored, and Sandbox(y) to Emergent.

Am I missing anything here?

More or less, yes. However both "sandbox" and "linear" (or especially "railroad") have connotations that aren't useful. Specifically sandbox often implies a lack of things happening, which is not necessary - many if not most emergent games have various things in motion, but how they end up is not predetermined.


I think both of these ideas are useful tools in a GM or storyteller's toolbox and should be viewed as a useful scale, not an absolute.

A new GM may need an "authored" pre-written scenario to learn GM skills, or new players may need simpler, controlled adventure content for example.

Oh, for sure. And to be clear, neither is good, and neither is bad.


My group is somewhat passive, so they have struggled to find footing when the plot or missions aren't laid out clearly. Sometimes they aren't so engaged or don't have time or creative energy free to engage in a collaborative process, also.

It's totally possible to have more emergent games that still work with passive players - what's required is really a motivation.


Of course, a GM may want to prepare maps, lore, and encounters so they don't have to be totally pulling content out of thin air. Not every GM is a perfect improvisation machine.

It's not really about prep, especially for maps, factions, NPCs, etc. And it's not about not doing some prep work for possible encounters. It's more about why you're having them, and where you go from there.


She enjoyed creating detailed maps and setting up encounters very exactly, so we were probably going to ride the bus to all of the planned encounters.

A valid style. But one that some people like, and others don't.


The exact balance of authorship to emergent content will vary with the players and DMs strengths and interests.

Exactly.



4. No one is talking about civilization, you just came in and suddenly started talking about it out of nowhere as if it matters. Only you are talking about this, and to somehow make this discussion about a completely unrelated game I don't think is in the spirit of the discussion. don't talk about oranges when everyone is discussing apples.

That was me, as an example of emergent vs. authored games slightly out of context (I often use out-of-context examples to get away from things being quite so contentious)



Although, sandboxes are definitely emergent, in the archetypical sandbox (or maybe just a CRPG-like sandbox) the content is authored. The setting exists before the characters/players interact with it and hence is authored.

No, when I refer to "authored" I don't mean the world - I mean the path that hte players take.


Yet how they interact with it and in what order is very open ended and because of this new experiences/combinations can emerge from the game that were not planned, were not authored, and that is a fundamentally different experience than even a linear campaign with branching paths.

Precisely this.


Yet I would argue that I have played and run games that are even less authored. Well we still made them up, in fact we make them up during the game. And by "we" I do mean the table, the players usually participate in this indirectly but it still isn't a sandbox because the GM has prepared toys ahead of time. They are created from the character's drives and motives** and it is something that is also fundamentally different than a sandbox.

Yes, those are emergent games, and why I'm avoiding the term "sandbox". Amount of prep is fairly orthogonal.



I think this is where the fundamental screaming arguments about 'railroading DM' versus 'lazy improv DM' come from. It comes down to people arguing about the kinds of fun they like to have, and projecting those likes onto what a TTRPG "should" be or whether a TTRPG is a "real" TTRPG if it isn't delivering primary Narrative versus primary Discovery.

I didn't talk about narrative vs. discovery at all, and I think it misses the point.

I'm also not sure where "lazy improv DM" comes from so.


Overlaid onto that is a fundamental difference in preference by way of DM preparation. Simplistically: you're either a DM who thinks their created world should exist in heavy detail ahead of interaction with the players, and continue to follow those pre-formed principles of existence when the players aren't directly interacting with it ... or you're a DM who doesn't.

That's pretty orthogonal.


When you step back and look at an adventure from the point of view of asking what kind of enjoyment is this thing trying to deliver to its players, the analysis of whether it is "railroading" or not becomes a lot simpler. Or at least less emotional. You also get a better idea, I think, of what needs to be done to the adventure to shape it to address given kinds of fun.

I've played these silly games for forty years now. I'm aware of what styles I do and don't like, and have played enough to really know. Kthx.


For clarity, I define 'railroading' pretty narrowly. The basic sequence of any RPG comes down to:

1. Introduce the scene.
2. Invite the players to act.
3. Adjudicate the outcome of their actions.
4. If the scene isn't over, return to step 2.
5. If the scene is over, transition to the next scene and return to step 1.

This is the part I really wanted to address. I think you actually missed a step in 5.

5. If the scene is over, let the players decide their next move.
6. Start the next scene and return to 1.

or something like that.


"Railroading" is, to me, removing step (2) from the equation, whether explicitly or implicitly.

So I think it's actually in step 6. In step 6, it's railroading if the choices made in 5 are irrelevant - either through outright negation or manipulation. That's an extreme level of railroading, of course, but it's the fundamental problem from my PoV as an emergent-preferred player. That negation can be through lack of choices (All exits but one are cut off) by inaction (nothing will progress until you do the right thing) by illusion (quantum ogre) or something else. And in less extreme versions, you can probably do some optional things or change up some ordering (again, see Mass Effect). But it's still primarily authored.

Saintheart
2022-04-26, 12:19 AM
I didn't talk about narrative vs. discovery at all, and I think it misses the point.

I know you didn't, but it is completely the point. I can see how you might have taken my post the wrong way, but I'm not actually disagreeing with you. What I'm saying is that if DMs focus on the type of enjoyment they're trying to convey, then moulding adventures becomes an easier analysis. That is, know your crowd and you don't have to worry about whether the narrative in a TTRPG can be easily categorised as authored or narrative, you just build your adventures playing to narrative or discovery impulses as desired.


I've played these silly games for forty years now. I'm aware of what styles I do and don't like, and have played enough to really know. Kthx.

I wasn't saying otherwise. If my post came across as patronising, or suggesting that you don't play linear just because you don't know what you like, that was not my intent at all. Quite the opposite, emergent RP is a valid playstyle and one I wish I had the chance to run more often. It's also (arguably) easier on a DM in terms of prep, so I have some self-interest on that one.



This is the part I really wanted to address. I think you actually missed a step in 5.

5. If the scene is over, let the players decide their next move.
6. Start the next scene and return to 1.

or something like that.

...

So I think it's actually in step 6. In step 6, it's railroading if the choices made in 5 are irrelevant - either through outright negation or manipulation. That's an extreme level of railroading, of course, but it's the fundamental problem from my PoV as an emergent-preferred player. That negation can be through lack of choices (All exits but one are cut off) by inaction (nothing will progress until you do the right thing) by illusion (quantum ogre) or something else. And in less extreme versions, you can probably do some optional things or change up some ordering (again, see Mass Effect). But it's still primarily authored.

As said above, I don't think defining something as authored or emergent really helps as such - we're already into gradations of one or the other, "primarily" authored for example.

I am interested in the phrase "it's railroading if the choices made in 5 are irrelevant", though -- what do you mean by the word "irrelevant"?

Irrelevant to the PCs?
Irrelevant this round but not next round?
Irrelevant to the NPCs?
Irrelevant to campaign world, or to the nation in which the narrative is occurring?
Irrelevant in that the same encounters took place?
Some combination of any or all of these?

This is not me trying to nitpick, it's not a gotcha question, I'm really trying to nail down exactly what is meant when a player says "my choice was irrelevant" in a TTRPG specifically. I suspect we're going to get no closer than the old definition of pornography, i.e. "I can't define it closely but I know it when I see it", but is working out what we mean by "irrelevant" worth looking into? (I mean, one of the big, big criticisms of Mass Effect 3 was precisely that - that the player's choices were irrelevant in large degree, in that the ending sequence came down to one of three differently-coloured cutscenes when Bioware had spruiked/promised that your choices would have meaningful effect on what happened. In passing, a TTRPG of that series could have handled ME 3's plot problems, easily, but that's another story entirely.)

Satinavian
2022-04-26, 03:05 AM
That sounds like a very common style of primarily authored content. That may be your experience as to the most common style, but it's not how I or a great number of others run games.And why do you call it authored instead of mixed ? It has from your description of emergent games :

but what the players do is fundamentally unknown, -> There are expectations, but no knowledge

and how the world changes in response to their actions is also fundamentally unknown. -> World always reacts in the most plausible/natural/sensible way but as player actions can only be guessed, not known, the same goes for the changes of the world.

Players can do basically whatever they want. -> They totally can.

But fans of emergent games want different things - they want their decisions to matter. -> they do matter

They want the game to take on a different shape than it would have if they had made other choices. -> Which is absolutely the case

They want to be able to solve the problems their own way. -> They can do that

They want to do things that the GM didn't plan for, -> they can do that, but obviously only by doing surprising things instead of sticking to their regular routine

and they want to make that take the "story"/game in a way that the GM could not have predicted. -> As above. They would need to do things the GM had not predicted to take the story in an unpredicted direction, but they totally can.


So why do you classify it as "authored" when it also shares all those properties of "emergent"?



And honestly this may be a big part of the issue - I think a lot of people (not necessarily you) assume that certain things are just part of how games are run, and haven't had experience in more emergent game styles. So it's hard to have that conversation when there's no shared experience. I see this all the time in the strawman of "if you don't railroad there's no plot, and I'd rather have a plot, so railroading is necessary".
I think you should not mix a discussion about classifying styles of play with an attempt to present "emergent" play to people who don't know it yet. One of the reasons i am so certain, that a mixture or continuum between "authored" and "emergent" exists, is that i also have experience with both extreme ends of the scale. And this experience certainly does help me to recognize i am more happy in a sweet spot in the middle, seek out like minded players and play this way most of the time.


But enough of the mixture and back to the extremes. When you describe what people like from authored/emergent games, i think you missed an important point : IME emergent games require more metagaming during play where authored games can offload most of that into the prep phase of the GM and go full immersive experience during play.

Vahnavoi
2022-04-26, 03:07 AM
It's not the elements that determine if a game is authored or emergent - it's the path that the players take. You can have as well-defined of a setting as you want, if the players are still largely in control of how things play out, it's an emergent game.

That's irrelevant for what I just said. Let me rephrase what you just said: "a game with authorially defined elements can still have emergent paths between those elements."

What I'm saying is that paths - connections between elements - are elements of their own. Additionally, that this kind of emergence is so god damn common that trying to build a dichtomy between game types on it is fruitless. I'm pretty sure Mass Effect has it's fair share of it despite strictly scripted over-arching plot. It might not have as much of it as, say, Civilization, but it definitely has more than two-branch visual novels or simple point&click adventure games, so.

This said, I don't advocate calling it a spectrum. Spectrum implies a range between values, a start and an end point. Neither authorial nor emergent elements have an end point in a vacuum. There doesn't actually exist, and it isn't even possible for a game to exist, that's "all emergence" as opposed to "no emergence", because it's always possible to add another point element for path elements to connect to. Similarly, there doesn't actually exist, and isn't even possible for a game to exist, that's "nothing authored", because games are defined by their rules, and rules must be authored. (Yes, the prior statement includes incomplete games such as roleplaying games. Just because all rules of a game aren't defined doesn't mean the rules that have been defined aren't definitional to a game.)


To go back to the Civilization example, you could take a saved game on the first turn and hand it to five different players - each one would likely get a different game, and often significantly different. The "history" of their events would read very differently. And yet all of the elements of the game are set in that saved game.

Wrong. Players are elements of a game. The individual skills, thoughts and strategies of players aren't recorded in the save file. That's chief reason why giving the same save file to different players produces different results. If I dug deep into programming of some specific Civilization game, I could probably find even more technical elements that aren't saved, mostly hidden variables such as random seeds.

Yora
2022-04-26, 03:16 AM
I've been using the term "scripted" for some years. It gets the point across and avoids having to discuss what railroad really means every time you talk about it. I guess authored does the same job, though I think I've seen that term used in regards to players authoring the story. Which is the exact opposite of a scriptrd game.
Though regardless, it's an inferior way to run RPGs that loses the best parts of what makes RPGs unique as a medium.

Vahnavoi
2022-04-26, 04:14 AM
Scripted is often sufficient, when used in specific theatrical sense. It starts to lose it power once you look at scripts and scripting on a deeper level and realize there are a lot of different ways to make a script, and several discussions about giving expressive freedom to actors that are nearly one-to-one with common discussions about player agency.

Morgaln
2022-04-26, 05:05 AM
Wrong. Players are elements of a game. The individual skills, thoughts and strategies of players aren't recorded in the save file. That's chief reason why giving the same save file to different players produces different results. If I dug deep into programming of some specific Civilization game, I could probably find even more technical elements that aren't saved, mostly hidden variables such as random seeds.

Isn't that Kyoryu's point, though? The way a game of Civilization develops largely depends on how the player approaches it (=emergent). Whereas Mass Effect will mostly develop the same, regardless of player approach (=authored).



And why do you call it authored instead of mixed ? It has from your description of emergent games :

but what the players do is fundamentally unknown, -> There are expectations, but no knowledge

and how the world changes in response to their actions is also fundamentally unknown. -> World always reacts in the most plausible/natural/sensible way but as player actions can only be guessed, not known, the same goes for the changes of the world.

Players can do basically whatever they want. -> They totally can.

But fans of emergent games want different things - they want their decisions to matter. -> they do matter

They want the game to take on a different shape than it would have if they had made other choices. -> Which is absolutely the case

They want to be able to solve the problems their own way. -> They can do that

They want to do things that the GM didn't plan for, -> they can do that, but obviously only by doing surprising things instead of sticking to their regular routine

and they want to make that take the "story"/game in a way that the GM could not have predicted. -> As above. They would need to do things the GM had not predicted to take the story in an unpredicted direction, but they totally can.


So why do you classify it as "authored" when it also shares all those properties of "emergent"?



I'd like to second this question; the play style Satinavian describes is very similar to my own. I usually give the players an initial problem to start the game off and then see where the decisions of the players take us. However, I have a few scenes (2-3) in mind that I would like to be part of the game. I wait for opportunities to insert these scenes into the emerging story at points where they would fit. Since I know my players, I usally have no problem finding an opportunity like that, but it occasionally happens that I never use one of these scenes since the game never reaches a point where that scene would make sense. These scenes are never the end of the story. I have no idea how the story will end when we start.
I'd classify that as emergent play with some authored content, i. e. mixed.

Vahnavoi
2022-04-26, 06:39 AM
Isn't that Kyoryu's point, though? The way a game of Civilization develops largely depends on how the player approaches it (=emergent). Whereas Mass Effect will mostly develop the same, regardless of player approach (=authored).

We're not in disagreement over existence of emergence in Civilization. I'm refuting a particular point about how the game stores information.

But, for the sake of argument, let do away with computers entirely. I set up a Chess board with some legal board position as a puzzle. Two players then continue this game. The one thing that the board position does not tell is who's turn it was before that game was halted, but it doesn't actually matter: since Chess is a deterministic perfect information game, it's in principle possible to calculate every legal outcome from that point on for both black and white.

For some board positions, this number is in the single digits. For others, it's in the low dozens or hundreds, but nonetheless within capacity of me, as the puzzle maker, to calculate and put in writing if I want to. Basic rules of Chess are conserved beyond the starting position.

I don't know which moves the two players will make, but I do know every possible move they could make. All possible paths have been accounted for and are visible to me as the one who set up the puzzle. So is the game authored or emergent?

The Glyphstone
2022-04-26, 10:27 AM
I'd definitely say that it is a sliding scale rather than a binary, as well. To consider my last game, the party was effectively given the premise - 'an ancient evil stirs and will soon awaken, gain strength and gather allies before confronting it'. But then they were dropped in the top corner of an unexplored 20x20 hexcrawl grid, full of stuff to loot, fight, or make friends with. In theory, like the chess game mentioned above, every potential outcome 'could' be calculated, since the grid map was drawn out ahead of time and I knew what each hex contained. But they only had enough time to actually explore about 1/3 of the map, or less if they devoted more time to currying favor with other factions (some of whom were mutually opposed) rather than exploring. I don't have the mathematical acumen to calculate how many thousands of potential pathways they could end up following, including the ones where they actually switched sides and joined the ancient evil instead. So is this an authored story since it has a (mostly) fixed endpoint, or is it emergent because of the massively unplanned and unpredictable game that fills the remaining 90%?

PhoenixPhyre
2022-04-26, 10:40 AM
I've actually run the same scenarios with multiple groups. Same planning document. Very different outcomes and gameplay, with entirely different scenes and challenges as actually played. All departed from my planning. The intended goal was the same, the starting point was the same. Authored? Emergent? Both?

I'm on team "multidimensional chaotic solution space, with some attractors and common themes" here.

KorvinStarmast
2022-04-26, 11:18 AM
I'm on team "multidimensional chaotic solution space, with some attractors and common themes" here. And it's dialable, based on the tastes of the player group. (As noted in the other thread, some people like a bit more railroad/progress/milestone/objective arc, some people prefer a lot less structure / more discovery.

PhoenixPhyre
2022-04-26, 11:33 AM
And it's dialable, based on the tastes of the player group. (As noted in the other thread, some people like a bit more railroad/progress/milestone/objective arc, some people prefer a lot less structure / more discovery.

And some people prefer "authored" more in some areas than others. There's a whole set of layers (very squishily-defined ones as well) here. And interplay between them.

Trying to boil all of this down into a single term seems rather futile. Sure, it takes more words, but explaining what parts you like and what you don't in plain language seems more useful to me.

Telok
2022-04-26, 12:49 PM
Using the computer game examples:
Strict - you start at A, follow events B to C to D, and end up at Z. These are the scripted first person shooters.
Less strict - you start A, you may or may not do a number of different things from B C D, and you get ending X Y or Z based on those. The 'choose your mission' games with multiple endings.
Fairly Open - you may start A B or C, choose to do or not do stuff in the middle, and end at X Y or Z. The 'choose your mission' with different starts & endings, or the Civ style games I guess.
Way Open - choose from lots and lots of possible starting points, do anything possible in the game, no defined ending. DwarfFortress (mermaid farming, Turing comlete minecart & pressure plate computers), maybe Minecraft.

Funny thing, when I start a campaign it usually starts strict then walks quickly through the spectrum to fully open. Its like, run the first session strict, then less strict to fairly open during the first "mission"/mini-adventure, then fairly open next, and after the second mini-adventure it gets to fully open. Interesting, hadn't thought about it that way before.

Stonehead
2022-04-26, 12:56 PM
It's not the elements that determine if a game is authored or emergent - it's the path that the players take. You can have as well-defined of a setting as you want, if the players are still largely in control of how things play out, it's an emergent game.

I'm gonna add my vote to the "it's a continuum" crowd. Most "authored" games I've played do give the players freedom to do whatever they want, they just have stakes set up in a way that the GM can predict generally the sort of things they'll do. During character creation, or maybe partway through the campaign, the GM learns what the characters care about. Then things happen that involve those things, and the characters naturally want to intervene. The go to cheap-and-easy way to do this is have a big villain try to destroy the world. All PCs want the world to not end, so they'll almost always go to stop the villain. Occasionally, the GM predicts wrong, and when he does, the players are free to go their own route.

I can think of one specific example in which a dimension hopping army secretly started invading, planning to take over the world. When the PCs discovered their plans, the odds seemed so overwhelming, that they decided to use their portals to try to evacuate their dimension, instead of fighting off the entire invading army. The GM readjusted his plans, and the campaign continued down this new route. That example really seems to bridge the line between authored and emergent, because the GM clearly did author a story, 90% of it even came to be, but the players drastically altered the direction of the story, so it would be pretty hard to say it was not an emergent game.

Now, not always, there have been campaigns whose plot hooks aren't much more than "your boss told you to do this" where we didn't have much say in the matter. But that's why I think it's definitely a continuum, because those games were way more authored than the first example.

IMO the biggest difference between the traditional "linear vs sandbox" dichotomy was how active the world was. It isn't always true, but typically, a narrative game will have pretty clear stakes, where the players react to the threats made by the world (and the npcs that inhabit the world). A sandbox game will have more active players, and a more reactive world. The players are given a map (usually), and actively decide which part of the world they'll interact with, and the world reacts to their choices. So it is subtly different than your "emergent vs authored" dichotomy.

KorvinStarmast
2022-04-26, 01:54 PM
IMO the biggest difference between the traditional "linear vs sandbox" dichotomy was how active the world was. It isn't always true, but typically, a narrative game will have pretty clear stakes, where the players react to the threats made by the world (and the npcs that inhabit the world). A sandbox game will have more active players, and a more reactive world. The players are given a map (usually), and actively decide which part of the world they'll interact with, and the world reacts to their choices. So it is subtly different than your "emergent vs authored" dichotomy. As I like to describe it, the world does some things as a consequence of player actions and decisions, and the world does some things despite player actions and decisions.

KillianHawkeye
2022-04-26, 03:25 PM
Railroad and sandbox are metaphors. What do we gain by replacing them with more explicit terms like authored and emergent? The meaning is the same, either way. Now we're just having a discussion over semantics. :smallconfused:

LecternOfJasper
2022-04-26, 05:34 PM
I can think of one specific example in which a dimension hopping army secretly started invading, planning to take over the world. When the PCs discovered their plans, the odds seemed so overwhelming, that they decided to use their portals to try to evacuate their dimension, instead of fighting off the entire invading army. The GM readjusted his plans, and the campaign continued down this new route. That example really seems to bridge the line between authored and emergent, because the GM clearly did author a story, 90% of it even came to be, but the players drastically altered the direction of the story, so it would be pretty hard to say it was not an emergent game.


This tends to be my experience when it comes to games that I actually enjoy. Usually there's something major happening in the world that you can antagonize or roll with as you'd like, though the DM probably has come up with a few ideas down the most likely routes. It seems that the definitions used in the OP's comments indicate that this is emergent gameplay, as this counts as a "world set up before hand with things going on" more so than a set story path.

So, provided the ending and middling bits are not set in stone (as in, the players role in the world), then the larger story beats planned by the GM become more "huge existing piece of material" as in icefractal's second example than "definite plot in mind, with some gaps in between" as in icefractal's third example.


As I like to describe it, the world does some things as a consequence of player actions and decisions, and the world does some things despite player actions and decisions.

Release an ancient and vile yuan-ti king into the world, learn he has a bag of ancient and quite binding contracts with a bunch of arbitrary forces and peoples, show him to the nearest town, plan a coup in front of him, double cross him, steal the one arm he has left, get ran out of town by the local mercenary/dictator, and just leave it like that?

Those choices will definitely have some consequences. Meanwhile, of course, they can be interacting with other factions and people, forming alliances, hunting for immortality, or whatever, which will have their own consequences, while the yuan-ti king consolidates his own power. At the same time, the dwarves have their own issues... and so the world turns.


Railroad and sandbox are metaphors. What do we gain by replacing them with more explicit terms like authored and emergent? The meaning is the same, either way. Now we're just having a discussion over semantics. :smallconfused:

The Playground's favorite game is and always has been Dungeons & Semantics. Some people just got confused and started talking about the other game sometimes :smallbiggrin:

Lord Raziere
2022-04-26, 05:39 PM
Railroad and sandbox are metaphors. What do we gain by replacing them with more explicit terms like authored and emergent? The meaning is the same, either way. Now we're just having a discussion over semantics. :smallconfused:

metaphors are the problem. metaphors are indirect and often prone to miscommunication, since a metaphor can be interpreted in different ways. if you don't know the intended meaning of the metaphor or it can be used in different ways positively or negatively, your just causing conflict.

more explicit terms are clearer. I've seen railroading used too often as an insult and synonym for bad GMing. I've seen sandbox talked up way too positively. there is emotional attachment and history to these terms that make them difficult to use neutrally. authored and emergent sound more neutral.

PhoenixPhyre
2022-04-26, 06:12 PM
metaphors are the problem. metaphors are indirect and often prone to miscommunication, since a metaphor can be interpreted in different ways. if you don't know the intended meaning of the metaphor or it can be used in different ways positively or negatively, your just causing conflict.

more explicit terms are clearer. I've seen railroading used too often as an insult and synonym for bad GMing. I've seen sandbox talked up way too positively. there is emotional attachment and history to these terms that make them difficult to use neutrally. authored and emergent sound more neutral.

If metaphors are the problem, the why use metaphorical terms like "authored" or "emergent" either? Even if everyone accepted those, the euphemism treadmill would guarantee that they'd be back to pejoratives/boosters real darn quick.

Better, in my mind at least, to break it down and talk about the specific expectations. Some people want substantial freedom to influence things at <insert list of arenas/levels/areas here>. Others are fine with mostly following someone else's lead, whether that's another player or the DM's lead.

Won't solve internet discussions, because nothing can solve those. :smalleek:

Lord Raziere
2022-04-26, 06:17 PM
If metaphors are the problem, the why use metaphorical terms like "authored" or "emergent" either? Even if everyone accepted those, the euphemism treadmill would guarantee that they'd be back to pejoratives/boosters real darn quick.

Better, in my mind at least, to break it down and talk about the specific expectations. Some people want substantial freedom to influence things at <insert list of arenas/levels/areas here>. Others are fine with mostly following someone else's lead, whether that's another player or the DM's lead.

Won't solve internet discussions, because nothing can solve those. :smalleek:

*roll eyes*

with that attitude nothing gets improved. you believe in the treadmill, you let it exist and control you. self-fulfilling prophecy logic: "it'll go back to being horrible anyways so why make it less horrible?"

PhoenixPhyre
2022-04-26, 07:18 PM
*roll eyes*

with that attitude nothing gets improved. you believe in the treadmill, you let it exist and control you. self-fulfilling prophecy logic: "it'll go back to being horrible anyways so why make it less horrible?"

I've seen it happen too many times. In too many contexts. And I firmly believe that Internet discussions are secondary (in the TTRPG context)--all that matters is what happens at individual tables. And learning to communicate better there, without all the obscurantist jargon and metaphors does make that better.

No matter what terms are used, they'll be weaponized by people who want to. Nothing can stop that. So it's just best to ignore that facet entirely and use the plainest, clearest language possible.

Lord Raziere
2022-04-26, 07:28 PM
I've seen it happen too many times. In too many contexts. And I firmly believe that Internet discussions are secondary (in the TTRPG context)--all that matters is what happens at individual tables. And learning to communicate better there, without all the obscurantist jargon and metaphors does make that better.

No matter what terms are used, they'll be weaponized by people who want to. Nothing can stop that. So it's just best to ignore that facet entirely and use the plainest, clearest language possible.

And I've seen too many naysayers say things like you do, to put up with this attitude that everything sucks and nothing can change. I don't care how hard won your "wisdom" is. the OP had a good idea in maybe redefining it so that its clearer, but apparently even the smallest change is bad and will only lead to the same.

I communicate just fine in the clear language you talk about at my tables yes, thats why I don't care your stating the obvious. therefore tables aren't the problem and don't need to be solved. therefore I'm not talking about solving tables.

Tanarii
2022-04-26, 07:30 PM
Your ideas are intriguing to me, and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

Of course, I'm not big on how it kind of implies there's some story involved here, one way or the other. 😂

icefractal
2022-04-26, 07:40 PM
"Authored" and "Emergent" are pretty high-level, especially if it's viewed as binary. As a component of describing a game? Sure. As the primary description? Not nearly sufficient.

Hell, even "Agency" is a pretty squishy term, really. Let's take a relatively common situation - the party is trying to do a fairly open-ended task like "get this defunct giant robot running (for at least a few hours)" or "convince the rulership of this city to form an alliance". There are at least two schools of thought on which way of resolving it gives the most player agency:

A) The components of the situation should be detailed out ahead of time, enough for emergent solutions to be possible. Then any action by the players should be evaluated as impartially as possible, so that it's as much like they're interacting with a real situation as it can be. This maximizes agency because they succeed or fail by the merits of their own plan, not by what the GM wants to happen. This fails to provide agency because it relies on the players being in-sync enough with the GM to perceive the same paths to success that said GM does.

B) The components of the situation should be detailed enough to give the players good grounds for inspiration. Then any action by the players should be evaluated as positively as possible, so that if it's at all plausible for it to work, it will work. This maximizes agency because the players can solve the situation in any plausible way, not constrained by what the GM happened to think of ahead of time. This fails to provide agency because regardless of the players plan, most paths will lead to the same (successful) outcome, making their choices less important.

Quertus
2022-04-26, 08:41 PM
Railroad and sandbox are metaphors. What do we gain by replacing them with more explicit terms like authored and emergent? The meaning is the same, either way. Now we're just having a discussion over semantics. :smallconfused:

Which metaphor we choose determines how people will abuse it. Note, for example, that I believe that "Railroading" is negative by definition, and use it as a pejorative, whereas I'm quite neutral on "Linear".

Also,



More or less, yes. However both "sandbox" and "linear" (or especially "railroad") have connotations that aren't useful. Specifically sandbox often implies a lack of things happening, which is not necessary - many if not most emergent games have various things in motion, but how they end up is not predetermined.


Precisely this.


Yet I would argue that I have played and run games that are even less authored. Well we still made them up, in fact we make them up during the game. And by "we" I do mean the table, the players usually participate in this indirectly but it still isn't a sandbox because the GM has prepared toys ahead of time. They are created from the character's drives and motives** and it is something that is also fundamentally different than a sandbox.

Yes, those are emergent games, and why I'm avoiding the term "sandbox". Amount of prep is fairly orthogonal.

I wasn't aware that "sandbox" carried the (False) connotation of "nothing's happening". It seems that, much like my CaS vs Caw example, we should work to refine our terms, to get to the heart of the matter, and rip out all the fat.

Which begs the question, does anyone believe "Authored" (or "Scripted") vs "Emergent" are better tied to this pure core than "Sandbox" and "Linear"?


Thank you. I'm trying to hit on the key parts of what "sandbox" people really want.



Either you know what's going to happen, or you don't. In Mass Effect 1, everybody's game ends up facing down Saren on the Citadel. In Civilization, everybody's game ends entirely differently, and different events will happen. Mass Effect has a cool story and setpiece encounters, Civilization has an unpredictable situation where your decisions ripple out and have long-lasting repercussions.


It's not the elements that determine if a game is authored or emergent - it's the path that the players take. You can have as well-defined of a setting as you want, if the players are still largely in control of how things play out, it's an emergent game.

To go back to the Civilization example, you could take a saved game on the first turn and hand it to five different players - each one would likely get a different game, and often significantly different. The "history" of their events would read very differently. And yet all of the elements of the game are set in that saved game.

OTOH, you can take those same five players and have them play Mass Effect - and they're still going to hit exactly the same major beats along their path. Some of the side effects may differ (do they save the Rachni or kill them?), but they're going to go on the same major five or six missions, and they'll share a subset of the side quests. Some of the orders may change, but they're essentially going through the same sequence of events, even if shuffled around a bit.


It's still a computer game. There are limitations.

Even if there are only certain win conditions, different players will go through very different paths to get to whatever end they choose to pursue, even starting from the same seed/save game. One player may war with England, make peace with India, and so on and so forth, while another player just huddles up and works on their tech tree. The "stories" of their game will be


This feels very disingenous to me. Computer games have inherent limitations, and if you can't see the difference between Civ and Mass Effect in terms of how emergent/plotted they are, then you're willfully ignoring them.


No, when I refer to "authored" I don't mean the world - I mean the path that hte players take.

Well, that's the thing - what I want out of a sandbox is for the entire path - including and especially the end - to not be pre-scripted.

And Civilization could do that, despite being a computer game. It's just a matter of, well, treating it like point buy instead of classes. Instead of "you win when you achieve one of these 5 classes", just set the win conditions to "you win when you have X points". Then the win conditions are, shock and surprise, Emergent.

Which was why I was arguing that Civilization must be called "Authored", at least insofar as its win conditions are concerned.

And, if we're talking about, as you put it, "the key parts of what "sandbox" people really want", then Civilization must be in the "not what I want", in the "Authored" camp.




This is the part I really wanted to address. I think you actually missed a step in 5.

5. If the scene is over, let the players decide their next move.
6. Start the next scene and return to 1.

or something like that.



So I think it's actually in step 6. In step 6, it's railroading if the choices made in 5 are irrelevant - either through outright negation or manipulation. That's an extreme level of railroading, of course, but it's the fundamental problem from my PoV as an emergent-preferred player. That negation can be through lack of choices (All exits but one are cut off) by inaction (nothing will progress until you do the right thing) by illusion (quantum ogre) or something else. And in less extreme versions, you can probably do some optional things or change up some ordering (again, see Mass Effect). But it's still primarily authored.

If this is what you really want to talk about... I'd say "talk about it more", but... I'm not sure that there's more to say?

Although I always thought of Railroading as something that would appear in this context as "only accepting a single way that a scene will end" ("the only way to..."), and negating any action that would run contrary to that intention.


Using the computer game examples:
Strict - you start at A, follow events B to C to D, and end up at Z. These are the scripted first person shooters.
Less strict - you start A, you may or may not do a number of different things from B C D, and you get ending X Y or Z based on those. The 'choose your mission' games with multiple endings.
Fairly Open - you may start A B or C, choose to do or not do stuff in the middle, and end at X Y or Z. The 'choose your mission' with different starts & endings, or the Civ style games I guess.
Way Open - choose from lots and lots of possible starting points, do anything possible in the game, no defined ending. DwarfFortress (mermaid farming, Turing comlete minecart & pressure plate computers), maybe Minecraft.

Funny thing, when I start a campaign it usually starts strict then walks quickly through the spectrum to fully open. Its like, run the first session strict, then less strict to fairly open during the first "mission"/mini-adventure, then fairly open next, and after the second mini-adventure it gets to fully open. Interesting, hadn't thought about it that way before.

Is there an existing example computer game that has the "way open" model, but doesn't end at X Y or Z, but simply when the user accumulates the required number of victory points? Or are you counting "victory" as "point X", regardless of whether you did so by rescuing the kidnapped dragon from the evil princess, selling the evil princess a copy of "how to train your dragon", or killing all the gods and letting you sort them out?

Telok
2022-04-26, 09:13 PM
Is there an existing example computer game that has the "way open" model, but doesn't end at X Y or Z, but simply when the user accumulates the required number of victory points? Or are you counting "victory" as "point X", regardless of whether you did so by rescuing the kidnapped dragon from the evil princess, selling the evil princess a copy of "how to train your dragon", or killing all the gods and letting you sort them out?

Good question. I fell out of much of the computer game market a fair time ago... Ah, the old Railroad Tycoon perhaps? I don't recall the exact end point of that, may not have had one and my game strat was whack strange anyways (I won tho).

Amidus Drexel
2022-04-26, 09:46 PM
I think "authored" and "emergent" are good at describing a scene - a single interaction or room might be pre-written or improvised (or both; a pre-planned interaction might go into an unexpected direction with player input).

At the scale of a campaign, though, I think you'd expect to see both in all but the most linear of authored games (here lie some significant portion of modules as well as the archetypical "firmly on the rails" game).

Cheesegear
2022-04-27, 12:06 AM
An emergent game, on the other hand, doesn't have that. Sure, there can be some initial elements, but what the players do is fundamentally unknown, and how the world changes in response to their actions is also fundamentally unknown. Players can do basically whatever they want.

I wrote a post about something like this that I do, but it didn't really fit the threads I was in at the time, so I get it go.

But in this case I'll talk about Towns.

My Towns don't really start with much.
- They start with the size I want them to be
- A major industry that supports the economy around it
- And a method of government.

I don't have...:
- Named NPCs
- Names locations
- Maps
...Yet.

My players will then ask me questions about the town:
- Is there a smithy? What kind?
- Can someone silver my weapon?
- Is there a Wizard? Cleric? More specfically, a Druid?
- What's the roughest bar in the town where I can fight someone and the cops don't get called?
- Is there a nice pub nearby where merchants drink wine?
- I want something shadier
- My character is looking for a library
- I WANT TO FLIRT WITH THE CATBOI None of that.

In narrative, we usually waive it away as the characters asking questions about a place they've never been. Talking to the locals.

Out of game, I'm going with my gut. No, the town doesn't have that. Yes, the town has that. Based on how large I made the Town at the start, and sort of based on whether or not I can work such a thing into the economy.
- Agrarian farmland? Yes, there's a Druid who helps with crops and animals.
- Coastal fishing village? No. No Druid. But there is a Tempest Cleric.

My Towns effectively have Quantum elements.

If you don't ask for something, I might not think of it 'til much, much later. I'm making stuff up as I go along, and I'm not going to think of everything.

If you, in character, ask me something that it's something your character wants, something you want to rolepaly...I can put it there, if I feel like it. But if I don't feel like it, I can put it away for later. I react to what my players want, by how their characters react in the world that I've put them in. Emergent storytelling, I guess. Perfect words.

I have seen many, many people describe their world - on this forum, too - the geopolitics are fixed, the locations are all down. Full backstories everywhere. What's in what city is where. Demographics and geographics are fixed. The players actually get no say at all, and the DM has already decided everything there is to know about the world, before the players have even made a character. Sure, some players might have a good adventure hook. But ~90% of the world seems to have already been made.

But apparently making 90% of your world without player interaction...Isn't a railroad...That's just...Part of DMing, apparently.

Yora
2022-04-27, 02:38 AM
What it ultimately comes down to is "do the actuons of the player meaningfully affect the outcome or not?"

If they do it's good, if they don't it's bad.

Xervous
2022-04-27, 06:55 AM
Your ideas are intriguing to me, and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

Of course, I'm not big on how it kind of implies there's some story involved here, one way or the other. 😂

With my gaming background “emergent” just makes me think of the creative stuff that players end up doing with the tools they are given up until the devs change something and label it a bugfix

Fixed an issue that was sometimes giving players more agency than intended

Thrudd
2022-04-27, 07:15 AM
I wrote a post about something like this that I do, but it didn't really fit the threads I was in at the time, so I get it go.

But in this case I'll talk about Towns.

My Towns don't really start with much.
- They start with the size I want them to be
- A major industry that supports the economy around it
- And a method of government.

I don't have...:
- Named NPCs
- Names locations
- Maps
...Yet.

My players will then ask me questions about the town:
- Is there a smithy? What kind?
- Can someone silver my weapon?
- Is there a Wizard? Cleric? More specfically, a Druid?
- What's the roughest bar in the town where I can fight someone and the cops don't get called?
- Is there a nice pub nearby where merchants drink wine?
- I want something shadier
- My character is looking for a library
- I WANT TO FLIRT WITH THE CATBOI None of that.

In narrative, we usually waive it away as the characters asking questions about a place they've never been. Talking to the locals.

Out of game, I'm going with my gut. No, the town doesn't have that. Yes, the town has that. Based on how large I made the Town at the start, and sort of based on whether or not I can work such a thing into the economy.
- Agrarian farmland? Yes, there's a Druid who helps with crops and animals.
- Coastal fishing village? No. No Druid. But there is a Tempest Cleric.

My Towns effectively have Quantum elements.

If you don't ask for something, I might not think of it 'til much, much later. I'm making stuff up as I go along, and I'm not going to think of everything.

If you, in character, ask me something that it's something your character wants, something you want to rolepaly...I can put it there, if I feel like it. But if I don't feel like it, I can put it away for later. I react to what my players want, by how their characters react in the world that I've put them in. Emergent storytelling, I guess. Perfect words.

I have seen many, many people describe their world - on this forum, too - the geopolitics are fixed, the locations are all down. Full backstories everywhere. What's in what city is where. Demographics and geographics are fixed. The players actually get no say at all, and the DM has already decided everything there is to know about the world, before the players have even made a character. Sure, some players might have a good adventure hook. But ~90% of the world seems to have already been made.

But apparently making 90% of your world without player interaction...Isn't a railroad...That's just...Part of DMing, apparently.

I think there's a problem completely equating "authoring" with "railroading", and your example shows that. The creation of any content at all is not "railroading".

Features of the world, like what sort of NPCs are in a given town or whether there is a mountain with a dragon inside, are not things players reasonably expect to control and there is nothing in the rules that says dice need to decide those things - therefore, whether you write those things months in advance or decide in the moment what's there, it can't be railroading.

I'm also not sure that those things can be said to be "emergent", either...you, the GM, are authoring them without real regard to what the players do and want (as it should be)- the world isn't formed by the will of the PCs, after all, their actions can't have any effect on whether there's a particular shop in the random town they just entered. Whether you wrote down last night the details of the town, or it's printed in a module, or you decided on the spot based on what makes sense to you...you're authoring that element of the game. The features of the world the PCs need to interact with can't be "emergent", because the game is about how they interact and react with the fictional world, not the creation of the world. The existence of a fictional world is an a priori necessity for the game to take place.

So, to borrow BRC's model from the previous thread, the authored/emergent property can only be rightly applied at the Macro, Micro and Super Micro levels of game design - deciding exactly what events will take place, in what order they will take place, and the exact actions of NPCs and the world in reaction to the PCs. Some GMs author all events and what order they take place in, and sometimes how a particular event needs to play out, which can be argued to be railroading. If you improvise what happens according to what the PC's do and how the dice fall, I'd call that emergent gameplay.

Vahnavoi
2022-04-27, 07:15 AM
Railroad and sandbox are metaphors. What do we gain by replacing them with more explicit terms like authored and emergent? The meaning is the same, either way. Now we're just having a discussion over semantics. :smallconfused:

Repeated threads on the subject have proven beyond reasonable doubt that a lot of people using said terms are metaphor illiterate and hence abuse the terms in a way that actively robs them of useful meaning. Abandoning such terms in favor of something more explicit avoids semantic discussions that go nowhere.

KorvinStarmast
2022-04-27, 08:52 AM
Railroad and sandbox are metaphors. What do we gain by replacing them with more explicit terms like authored and emergent? The meaning is the same, either way. Now we're just having a discussion over semantics. :smallconfused: That's par for the course in an internet discussion about concepts, isn't it?

The Playground's favorite game is and always has been Dungeons & Semantics. Some people just got confused and started talking about the other game sometimes :smallbiggrin:
I thought it was Swords and Semantics, or Spells and Semantics, depending on if it was a martial friendly game or a caster friendly game. :smallyuk:

I think "authored" and "emergent" are good at describing a scene {snip} At the scale of a campaign, though, I think you'd expect to see both in all but the most linear of authored games The world builder more or less bounds the problem, but what's in the middle, the juicy bits, usually calls for a lot of player action/decision to flesh out.

Repeated threads on the subject have proven beyond reasonable doubt that a lot of people using said terms are metaphor illiterate and hence abuse the terms in a way that actively robs them of useful meaning. Abandoning such terms in favor of something more explicit avoids semantic discussions that go nowhere. Not sure this one is going anywhere different than the thread that inspired it, TBH.

kyoryu
2022-04-27, 09:28 AM
I think there's a problem completely equating "authoring" with "railroading", and your example shows that. The creation of any content at all is not "railroading".

Features of the world, like what sort of NPCs are in a given town or whether there is a mountain with a dragon inside, are not things players reasonably expect to control and there is nothing in the rules that says dice need to decide those things - therefore, whether you write those things months in advance or decide in the moment what's there, it can't be railroading.

I'm also not sure that those things can be said to be "emergent", either...you, the GM, are authoring them without real regard to what the players do and want (as it should be)- the world isn't formed by the will of the PCs, after all, their actions can't have any effect on whether there's a particular shop in the random town they just entered. Whether you wrote down last night the details of the town, or it's printed in a module, or you decided on the spot based on what makes sense to you...you're authoring that element of the game. The features of the world the PCs need to interact with can't be "emergent", because the game is about how they interact and react with the fictional world, not the creation of the world. The existence of a fictional world is an a priori necessity for the game to take place.

So, to borrow BRC's model from the previous thread, the authored/emergent property can only be rightly applied at the Macro, Micro and Super Micro levels of game design - deciding exactly what events will take place, in what order they will take place, and the exact actions of NPCs and the world in reaction to the PCs. Some GMs author all events and what order they take place in, and sometimes how a particular event needs to play out, which can be argued to be railroading. If you improvise what happens according to what the PC's do and how the dice fall, I'd call that emergent gameplay.

I think I was fairly clear that "authored" refers specifically to the path that the players take, rather than the setting elements.

Cheesegear
2022-04-27, 09:42 AM
I think there's a problem completely equating "authoring" with "railroading", and your example shows that. The creation of any content at all is not "railroading".

Strong disagree.

DM: You start of in a tavern, it's late afternoon. This late in the aftern-
Player: Bulls*. I woke up with the Sun, I already travelled 10 miles by late afternoon and I'm already at the next town. I ain't in no tavern. And I'm not even in the town you want me to be in. I'm not on your railroad.

This is why I said in the last thread that every DM railroads. You kind of have to, at some point.


I'm also not sure that those things can be said to be "emergent", either...you, the GM, are authoring them without real regard to what the players do and want (as it should be)- the world isn't formed by the will of the PCs, after all, their actions can't have any effect on whether there's a particular shop in the random town they just entered. Whether you wrote down last night the details of the town, or it's printed in a module, or you decided on the spot based on what makes sense to you...you're authoring that element of the game.

Right. The DM has all the power, all the time.


The features of the world the PCs need to interact with can't be "emergent", because the game is about how they interact and react with the fictional world, not the creation of the world.

Again. Strong disagree. We even have a current thread about backstories where players can create entire locations within the narrative, inlcuding NPCs complete with quasi-history and the DM runs with it. The emergent narrative, drives the emergent gameplay.


The existence of a fictional world is an a priori necessity for the game to take place.

The world must exist. Sure. I think we can agree on that. There must be a rock that you can stand on with breathable atmosphere, and you can move in an X and Y axis - and maybe Z.

But if you start filling out that plane without the players' input, then you're already creating stories...Without their input.

That's why as I said, I create the minimum amount possible:
There is a town. It has an economy. With a government. With people. Where would you like to be, and what doing, within said town?

kyoryu
2022-04-27, 10:15 AM
Not sure this one is going anywhere different than the thread that inspired it, TBH.

There's a conversation pattern happening in these that annoys me, and I'm not sure what causes it.

To me, a lot of this sounds like this:

Non-linear-gamers: "Hey, I really prefer games like this, and not like this. I've played both."
Others: "What you're saying isn't real. See, linear games do that too!"
NLG: "Uh, no, they don't. That's totally not my experience, and I don't like the thing you're talking about."
Others: "There's no difference, really."

... with some people going "well if I hide it it doesn't count" as a side dish.

It also feels like there's a lot of erasure of more emergent styles, or at least dismissal of the preference for them. "Well, if that's emergent, then this qualifies too." A lot of the "spectrum" arguments feel like this to me - I'm sitting there saying "no, that's not the thing I want" and I'm getting back "yeah, it kind of is." or "well your definition of linear is impossible, no games are like that" (when I've absolutely played a lot of games like that - nearly every adventure path, nearly every organized play group, and a lot of "regular" games. Or "haha, here's an element that proves that everything is really authored, so your preference doesn't exist! May as well just admit you enjoy authored stuff."

I'm not sure what causes this. I have a few hypotheses:

1. They haven't really played fully emergent games, so they just assume that's how things must be. There's no mapping from what I'm talking about to things they've experienced. You also see things like "well if you don't want a linear game, you can't have story".
2. They somehow take authored or linear as an insult, and so want to justify that they're not. (Some of this falls on NLGs, who are often very vocal. Both styles are valid, and people have preferences for both).
3. They're trying to make soap-definitions for things

I read a thing about how people define things - some things are defined in a soap-like way. Soap has certain things necessary to be soap, including ingredients. And you can have something that looks very much like soap and does similar things, but if it doesn't meet those requirements, it's not soap. On the other hand, you have sandwiches. What is and is not a sandwich is... not cut and dried. We mostly learn by example of what sandwiches are, and things that are sandwich-like but have specific names generally aren't sandwiches. Hamburgers and hot dogs aren't sandwich, but a roast beef sandwich or a sub are. Trying to make a concrete set of rules for "sandwich" vs "not sandwich" is nearly impossible, and would be so full of exceptions as to be unusable. And ultimately I think that this difference is like that - it's fuzzy. That doesn't necessarily mean it's a spectrum, but it does mean that you can't point to particular traits and say "this clearly makes this emergent" vs. "this clearly makes this authored".

I'm not interested in making soap-definitions here. I don't think they are helpful. What I am interested in is explaining why I like certain things, and that I do see a difference, and what that difference is - even if it is a bit vague. And the best sandwich-definition I have is something like "if you ran two groups through the game, they'd probably go through roughly the same encounters."

Anyway, getting a bit meta on the discussion here.

PhoenixPhyre
2022-04-27, 10:28 AM
What it ultimately comes down to is "do the actuons of the player meaningfully affect the outcome or not?"

If they do it's good, if they don't it's bad.

Except that there are people who are perfectly fine with only tactical control (ie at the round-to-round level), even when success is guaranteed (or failure, depending on the situation) at the scenario/encounter level and there's no control at all beyond that. That's the JRPG way. And it's quite popular, even at the table-top.

There are people who don't want large-scale control/influence, strangely enough. There are people who demand it. As long as people are getting what they want, it's all fine. The biggest difficulty comes in when
* people don't know what they want
* people lie to others about what they're giving/what they want
* people who want fundamentally incompatible things are playing together
* etc.

kyoryu
2022-04-27, 10:38 AM
Except that there are people who are perfectly fine with only tactical control (ie at the round-to-round level), even when success is guaranteed (or failure, depending on the situation) at the scenario/encounter level and there's no control at all beyond that. That's the JRPG way. And it's quite popular, even at the table-top.

There are people who don't want large-scale control/influence, strangely enough. There are people who demand it. As long as people are getting what they want, it's all fine. The biggest difficulty comes in when
* people don't know what they want
* people lie to others about what they're giving/what they want
* people who want fundamentally incompatible things are playing together
* etc.

Well, yes. I'd even say that's the dominant way of playing, in my experience.

In no way do I disparage that. It's just not my preference

PhoenixPhyre
2022-04-27, 10:44 AM
Well, yes. I'd even say that's the dominant way of playing, in my experience.

In no way do I disparage that. It's just not my preference

Note that I was responding to someone who seemed (they can speak for themselves) to be saying that "actions have substantial effects on outcomes == good" and "actions don't have substantial effects on outcomes == bad". It was that blanket statement (which is a common one on these forums) that I was cautioning against, saying it's more complicated than that.

And why boiling it down to binaries/dichotomies doesn't work for me--there's a huge variety (not spectrum, it's neither linear nor continuous nor one-dimensional) of desires here. Each one's going to be a negotiation.

Satinavian
2022-04-27, 11:00 AM
A lot of the "spectrum" arguments feel like this to me -
Well, but they are certainly not. If a spectrum exists, there is not only a middle, there also recognized extremes. So i don't see why that would deny purely emergent games at all. Or require that someone who likes one of the extremes must also like the things in the middle because those share some aspects.

But when you tell other people that there is no spectrum, that all games are either emergent or authored with no middle ground, you are telling other people that the games they play don't really exist. Or that they don't really understand their own games and thus classify them wrong (assuming that they just don't know enough games for contrast). It is pretty much the same condescending attitude that annoys yourself and also arises all the time from adherents of roleplaying theory constructs whenever something doesn't fit. It certainly won't do you any good.


I'm not interested in making soap-definitions here. I don't think they are helpful. What I am interested in is explaining why I like certain things, and that I do see a difference, and what that difference is - even if it is a bit vague. And the best sandwich-definition I have is something like "if you ran two groups through the game, they'd probably go through roughly the same encounters."If you want to talk about games you like, talk about games you like.


This thread however is only providing an abstract description of a game you like and the absolute antithesis of it and then proposing that those two options cover all of RPGs. How would that help you at all ? Do you want to boil down the discussion to those archetypes alone to then explain why you like one better than the other ? This will only end with pretty much every reader answering "well, i don't play either so the whole analysis is useless for me".




There are people who don't want large-scale control/influence, strangely enough. There are people who demand it. As long as people are getting what they want, it's all fine. The biggest difficulty comes in when
* people don't know what they want
* people lie to others about what they're giving/what they want

Now, one thing i absolutely despise are GMs believing that they know better than their players what those players want. That is both nearly always wrong and a lack of the minimum respect a GM should have for their players. I absolutely would not play with such a person and i certainly never thought such of of my players though all of my many decades of gaming.

KillianHawkeye
2022-04-27, 11:13 AM
Repeated threads on the subject have proven beyond reasonable doubt that a lot of people using said terms are metaphor illiterate and hence abuse the terms in a way that actively robs them of useful meaning. Abandoning such terms in favor of something more explicit avoids semantic discussions that go nowhere.

How does yet another discussion of semantics help us avoid semantic discussions that go nowhere? :smallconfused:

Thrudd
2022-04-27, 11:14 AM
Strong disagree.

DM: You start of in a tavern, it's late afternoon. This late in the aftern-
Player: Bulls*. I woke up with the Sun, I already travelled 10 miles by late afternoon and I'm already at the next town. I ain't in no tavern. And I'm not even in the town you want me to be in. I'm not on your railroad.

This is why I said in the last thread that every DM railroads. You kind of have to, at some point.

Right. The DM has all the power, all the time.

Again. Strong disagree. We even have a current thread about backstories where players can create entire locations within the narrative, inlcuding NPCs complete with quasi-history and the DM runs with it. The emergent narrative, drives the emergent gameplay.

The world must exist. Sure. I think we can agree on that. There must be a rock that you can stand on with breathable atmosphere, and you can move in an X and Y axis - and maybe Z.

But if you start filling out that plane without the players' input, then you're already creating stories...Without their input.

That's why as I said, I create the minimum amount possible:
There is a town. It has an economy. With a government. With people. Where would you like to be, and what doing, within said town?

If players create things in their backstories that the GM chooses to use in the game...it is still authored. It just isn't completely authored by the GM. The things they write into backstories are created pre-game, and once the game starts they don't get to change it - those are now facts about the fictional world. Some systems do allow the setting to be partially "emergent", with rules that actually codify how players can introduce certain elements into the world during play, that is true. Most systems, however, have no such codification, D&D certainly doesn't. In a game where the GM has all the power, as you say, the setting isn't really emergent. Also, creating the setting isn't creating "stories" - it is creating an environment in which stories can happen, the parameters and conflicts that will define the potential directions a story can take, but a story itself doesn't need to be authored. If you don't decide what happens after the players get involved, it isn't authoring a story. A game needs a starting point.

Deciding when and where the game starts, and where all the PCs are located at the beginning of the campaign is not "railroading", no matter how much a player misuses that term. It's an out-of-game discussion the group needs to have, if the players have very specific requests or expectations regarding exactly where their characters will be located at the start of the campaign. Only what happens after the game starts can be analyzed according to any "player agency" metric. Now, if, at the beginning of every session, the GM narrates how the PCs are in a new place and have decided to pursue a mission that the players didn't actually decide on...yes, you could call that railroading. Not all GMs do that, it certainly isn't necessary, although it may be appropriate for certain game formats. If you tell the players what their characters are doing at a point in the game when they are expected to be in control, this is when you are "removing agency".

A linear, authored story/campaign might justifiably be called a "railroad" by the players, if they had good reason to think that the game would be more emergent exploration. Yes, this is exactly what the other thread was about, sorry. That's why you tell them beforehand if they are going to be playing an "authored" adventure path with a definite sequence of events or an "emergent" open-world exploration game, or a little of both (like open-world emergent narrative, but if you agree to start down an adventure path placed before you, the next session might seem like it has some "rails" as events unfold). If you know the players don't care or have any expectations regarding their agency, then it might not be necessary. But as soon as people start grumbling about stuff, a discussion might need to be had.

Tanarii
2022-04-27, 11:26 AM
Deciding when and where the game starts, and where all the PCs are located at the beginning of the campaign is not "railroading", no matter how much a player misuses that term.
It's a term which gets misused a lot. Which is kinda the point of the OP trying to come up with alternative terms, less likely to be misused.

KorvinStarmast
2022-04-27, 11:27 AM
There's a conversation pattern happening in these that annoys me, and I'm not sure what causes it. The internet. :smallwink:


To me, a lot of this sounds like this:

Non-linear-gamers: "Hey, I really prefer games like this, and not like this. I've played both."
Others: "What you're saying isn't real. See, linear games do that too!"
NLG: "Uh, no, they don't. That's totally not my experience, and I don't like the thing you're talking about."
Others: "There's no difference, really." My, how insistent you are that battle lines must be drawn between two sides. Maybe there are more than two sides in this whole thing.
As to your opening gambit, that isn't how it necessarily starts and I am not sure that making the artificial distinction, the line in the sand, is helpful given all of the baggage that has accrued to the conversation in the past two decades. (Thank you, Forge, for all that).

It also feels like there's a lot of erasure of more emergent styles, or at least dismissal of the preference for them. stuff." You may be counting the hits and ignoring the misses.

1. They haven't really played fully emergent games Are we wandering into a no true game, or a no true gamer, position here? The level of immersion that any player prefers varies with that player. I like immersion more than some of the people I play with, but I still play with them.
I'm not interested in making soap-definitions here. I don't think they are helpful. What I am interested in is explaining why I like certain things, and that I do see a difference, and what that difference is - even if it is a bit vague. It seems to me that like the infamous railroad / sandbox dichotomy, you are attempting to make a distinction that does not necessarily exist, except at an esoteric level.

Here's what I see happening in this thread: it's (in part) a repackaging of that same troublesome argument with new terms, and that thin veneer of difference was rapidly peeled away.

BRC
2022-04-27, 11:45 AM
I'm going to repeat some definitions from the other thread that I came up with here as far as discussing scale. I can dig up the original, longer post, but in short:

Supermacro, Macro, Micro, and Supermicro

Supermacro: Details of the setting, and basic premise of the campaign (This campaign is about working for the King to find the Macguffin and stop the Demon King from Reawakening).

Macro: What we would consider the "Plot" of the campaign.

Micro: The Events and outcome of a given session.

Supermicro: The events and outcome of a specific scene.


So, if a game is "Authored" at the Macro level, that means that the PC's arrive at Ancient Ruins Island and need to recover the Tablet of Plot Advancement, because "Get the Tablet of Plot Advancement" is the next step of the authored plot.
In an Emergent Macro game, the same thing might be happening. It can be hard to nail down exactly where the line is, since big sweeping plot stuff like "Get the Macguffin" can come about pretty organically, if the GM presents a Problem to solve and a Macguffin that solves it, "The PC's go to get the Macguffin" can occur in both Emergent and Authored play.


That said, I think that part of the reason these discussions fall apart is because beyond talks of spectrums, there's a certain degree of Depth that can vary wildly.

Thinking about this quote from the OP



But fans of emergent games want different things - they want their decisions to matter. They want the game to take on a different shape than it would have if they had made other choices. They want to be able to solve the problems their own way. They want to do things that the GM didn't plan for, and they want to make that take the "story"/game in a way that the GM could not have predicted.

What does it mean for your choices to Matter.
Considering the following statements.

A) The PC's travel to Ancient Ruins Island
B) The PC's recover the Tablet of Plot Advancement
C) The PC's take the Tablet of Plot Advancement to the Gates of Doom
D) The PC's use the Tablet to perform the Rite of Sealing and close the Gates of Doom Forever.

The general impression is that if the above statements are all guaranteed to be true, then the game is Railroaded/Linear/Authored, and PC choices Don't Matter, except that if they fail, the plot stops and the game ends.


However, this clashes with a lot of people's experiences, where they are locked into a pre-written plot (Like in a Module), But they feel like they do get to make meaningful choices that matter.

This is because discussions like this rarely touch on the Depth of agency, instead focusing simply on "How many plot points are pre-written".

For example, imagine that, on Ancient Ruins Island, the PC's encounter a group of Immortal Lizardfolk who protect the Tablet. If the PC's fight their way through the Lizardfolk, they arrive at the Gates of Doom alone.

If they befriend the Lizardfolk and convince them to help, they arrive at the Gates of Doom at the head of an army of dinosaur-riding warriors.

This results in two dramatically different experiences, some might even call them different stories, based on the PC's choices and actions. In one, the final sequence at the Gates of Doom is a commando raid, as a small band of Heroes try to get in and do the Rite of Sealing before the forces of darkness know what's going on. In the other, it's a massive epic battle where victory means defeating the Forces of Darkness on the field so that the Rite can be completed.


And so when people say "I want to play a game where my choices Matter, and in an Authored Game they don't, because it's all prewritten" that clashes with other people's experience. Because for other players, a prewritten macro-level plot is kind of secondary to the rich, emergent experience going on at the Micro level. The decision to befriend the Lizardfolk is very much a meaningful choice that dramatically changes the experience of the game.


The key with my system above is that the actual Game is experienced at the Supermicro level, scene-by-scene, but discussions of railroading usually concern themselves with the Macro level, and discussions can quickly devolve into the idea that anything happening below the Macro level doesn't matter. That the actual content of the sessions is a minor detail, and so long as the major plot points are intact, you're not really exercising Agency. And so a statement like "I want my choices to Matter" still raises a lot of questions. Matter to who? To you, the player playing the game, or to somebody you're describing the game to in an elevator three months from now.


Edit:


There are a few other things that come to mind.

1) Player Driven vs PC Driven, or Choice vs Consequences.

If the Players say "We want to fight a Dragon" so the DM has a Dragon attack the town, then the Players got to control the story, but it wasn't really Emergent. Similarly, if the PC's decide to pick up some extra gold by robbing a random caravan, only to learn later that the Caravan belonged to a Dragon, and now the Dragon is attacking them, that's an "Emergent" story, but it wasn't necessarily the player's CHOICE to start a fight with a Dragon.


2) GM Created vs Pre-Written.

If the Players and PC's decide to deal with their Dragon Problem by forging a Dragonslaying Sword, and the GM responds by building a quest to get the materials, is that "Authored" or "Emergent". The PCs/Players were the impetus for forging the sword, but what they need to do to achieve that goal comes from the GM, unless there were pre-existing rules for forging a dragonslaying sword, and the relevant materials were already lying around where the PC's could get at them.

And, if you say "The PC's can only do things that the rules explicitly allow given details already provided", isn't that more limiting than letting them say "We would like to forge a dragonslaying Sword" and letting the GM work out what it takes to do that?


Edit 2) Rereading my above, it comes across as a little harsh to people who do demand macro-level emergent stories. There's nothing wrong with that.


But it's important to know what, specifically, you want, and be able to put that into words. If your definition is just "I want my choices to Matter", you're saying "Any agency at a level below this Does Not Matter", which is somewhat insulting to people who revel in the agency found at lower-levels. Tell my hypothetical party above that their choice to befriend the Lizardfolk didn't Matter simply because they left the island with the tablet.

Composer99
2022-04-27, 12:46 PM
Personally, I'm inclined to say that the point of "emergent" gameplay is to play to find out what happens next, because you don't really know. (I shan't credit myself with "playing to find out what happens next" as a term of art - IIRC it's a guiding principle for PbtA games.)

You could run, say, Tyranny of Dragons in this style. Say, you set a timeline of 300 days from the start of the clock (the PCs stumble on the attack on Greenest) to when Tiamat is summoned, and then let the PCs decide things such as whether they're going to oppose the cult, fall in with it, or skedaddle ("I hear Chult is lovely this time of dragon-infested Sword Coast!") (*), or even switch from one course to another or come up with something not included in these options. How is that all going to fall out? Who knows?

All you know is that 300 days from now, Tiamat is summoned bodily to the world. You don't even know for sure if that will result in victory for her and the chromatic dragons, because you don't know what the game world state will be like then. That seems pretty emergent to me, even if there is an event in the future game state that is, strictly speaking, not an emergent consequence of gameplay up to that point.

To add to the emergent nature, you can - and if you wanted to run this campaign in this style, ought to - also add conditions to the 300-day timeline. Tiamat arrives in 300 days provided certain conditions are met, giving the PCs a chance to delay or derail the summoning. (Technically, the adventure as written does offer this sort of possibility, albeit only in a very last-minute sort of way.)

That makes things even more emergent, because even the central event on which the campaign is predicated becomes an emergent consequence of how the PCs choose to engage with the content. It is not a "this thing happens no matter what" event, it is now a pre-player-character status quo - "this thing happens unless and until the PCs meddle, and then maybe it does or maybe it doesn't, it depends on how the PC actions shake out".

(*) Personally, if I as DM proposed to run Tyranny of Dragons and the players agreed to play it, even with a more "emergent" form of gameplay - or worse yet, one or more players asked me to run it and I agreed - I'd be annoyed if the players then decided not to engage with the adventure content they agreed to play. But other DMs are more sanguine about such possibility; well and good.


Riffing off of BRC's post about scales, this "playing to find out what happens next" can happen at any scale of the game - including happening at some scales but not at others.

With that in mind, to my mind:
(1) "Authored" content, in the sense that kyoryu seems to mean the term, would be content where at some level or another you aren't playing to find out what's going to happen next because that's already been decided, using the above definition of emergent gameplay.
(2) Railroading as a name for a GMing misdemeanour (as opposed to railroading as a synonym for "linear styles of adventure") happens specifically when the GM/DM has already decided what's going to happen with respect to player action at a given scale of the game (meaning no one is going to play to find out what happens next at that scale) and the players are led to believe otherwise.
(3) Player agency in the context of emergent gameplay/authored content/railroading is specifically the players' ability to change the future state of the game at a given scale by virtue of their decisions and actions.
(4) Playing to find out what happens next allows for both prep-heavy (classic old-school hexcrawl/dungeoncrawl) and prep-light systems and GM/DM styles, because the initial conditions of a setting or campaign do not dictate what happens next once the player characters drop on it like the proverbial wrecking ball.

kyoryu
2022-04-27, 12:54 PM
And why boiling it down to binaries/dichotomies doesn't work for me--there's a huge variety (not spectrum, it's neither linear nor continuous nor one-dimensional) of desires here. Each one's going to be a negotiation.

It's only one of multiple differences between games, but I do think it's an important one. For many people, it is a strong predictor of whether or not they'll enjoy the game.


Well, but they are certainly not. If a spectrum exists, there is not only a middle, there also recognized extremes. So i don't see why that would deny purely emergent games at all. Or require that someone who likes one of the extremes must also like the things in the middle because those share some aspects.

But when you tell other people that there is no spectrum, that all games are either emergent or authored with no middle ground, you are telling other people that the games they play don't really exist. Or that they don't really understand their own games and thus classify them wrong (assuming that they just don't know enough games for contrast). It is pretty much the same condescending attitude that annoys yourself and also arises all the time from adherents of roleplaying theory constructs whenever something doesn't fit. It certainly won't do you any good.

I've acknowledged that authored games can have some level of freedom.

I think a good analogy is phase transitions in water. Above freezing, but below boiling, water is a liquid. Below freezing, it is a solid. That's mostly binary - excepting water that happens to be exactly 32 degrees that contains a mixture of the two, but certainly on a molecular level it's binary.

But that doesn't mean that all water is either "hot" at just under boiling or "cold" at some ridiculous level of cold. But it does mean that at a certain point, its nature changes in a fundamental way. In other words, the temperature can be a spectrum while the state of water is not.

That also doesn't mean that all "ice" is alike or all "water" is alike. Ice can be in various forms - icicles, cubes, snow, crushed ice, ice slicks, etc. Water can be pools, droplets, spray, mist, etc.



My, how insistent you are that battle lines must be drawn between two sides. Maybe there are more than two sides in this whole thing.
As to your opening gambit, that isn't how it necessarily starts and I am not sure that making the artificial distinction, the line in the sand, is helpful given all of the baggage that has accrued to the conversation in the past two decades.

And yet I'm sitting here saying "this isn't theoretical. THere are things I can point to in games that strongly impact my enjoyment of said games, and this is one of the big ones."

I've offered some high level differences that are fairly binary - does the GM plan out specific encounters, especially in a series or slightly branching structure, or do they not? If two groups go through the same content, will they more-or-less do the same things, or will the "stories" of the game be wildly different? After a scene, is the group free to decide what the next scene is, or are they effectively limited to pre-generated choices?

I can assure you these differences are not "artificial" to me. They matter a great deal to me and my enjoyment of games. Maybe they don't to you, or maybe you don't see the differences for some reason, or maybe you've got some interest in claiming there isn't a difference for some reason. I dunno. But they are absolutely real to me (and many others, as evidenced by the number of people talking about them for decades)


(Thank you, Forge, for all that).

Ugh. If you ever think I am repeating Forge theory, you are 100% wrong. GNS is an abomination.


You may be counting the hits and ignoring the misses. Are we wandering into a no true game, or a no true gamer, position here?

Not at all. RPGs are a big hobby, with lots of different experiences in them. Nobody has had all of them - we all have things in the hobby we haven't experienced.

Story time - before I played narrative games, i was vehemently against them (coming from more of a world-sim approach). On this very forum, I claimed that they were "roll to see how awesome you are" games where victory was assured. Somebody corrected me by telling me about a game he had run where, though the players ultimately won, the cost was incredibly dear. Because of this, I went and tried a bunch of narrative games to see what they were about and how they worked.

That was a blind spot I had in my experience. I'm not saying I "wasn't a gamer" then, or am somehow "more of a gamer" now. I have a different set of experiences now, but that's it.

"Authored" games are the majority of the hobby these days, especially within D&D-like games. Suggesting that's been somebody's primary play experience isn't insulting at all, nor claiming they're less of a gamer. And I'm not even necessarily saying that's you. But one explanation for not seeing a difference between "ice" and "water" is that someone hasn't seen ice. So to them, it is just a spectrum, because they haven't encountered things on the other side of that phase transition - it's all just hot water and cold water to them. Why do I feel comfortable saying this? Because there are people that insist that you have to have a linear game with low agency to have a story. That's simply not correct (I've done it) so I can only assume that those are the only two ways they know to run games.

I've still never played a diceless game. I've never played something less procedural, like Hillfolk or other story system games. I've never played a game like Ten Candles. I have no idea how these games change the experience, and it's entirely likely I make assumptions about what RPGs are and are not that would be challenged by any of these. That also doesn't make me less of a gamer. Nor does it mean someone that's done these things is "better" or "more of a gamer" than me - undoubtedly I have experiences they don't have either.


The level of immersion that any player prefers varies with that player. I like immersion more than some of the people I play with, but I still play with them.

I'm not sure why this is relevant?

Also, I know many immersion-first players that absolutely reject games that offer "meta" narrative abilities. So even that, while subjective, is an important difference and one that can absolutely impact enjoyment of a game.


It seems to me that like the infamous railroad / sandbox dichotomy, you are attempting to make a distinction that does not necessarily exist, except at an esoteric level.

And yet I sit here and tell you it absolutely exists to me. I can absolutely point to games that are on either side of the divide, and the vast majority of games fall squarely on one side or the other.

Dragonus45
2022-04-27, 12:56 PM
Railroad and sandbox are metaphors. What do we gain by replacing them with more explicit terms like authored and emergent? The meaning is the same, either way. Now we're just having a discussion over semantics. :smallconfused:

I have found that people have started using the term Railroaded really aggressively any time I see a DM talk about having any kind of structure to a game. Having a less loaded term with less negative connotations adds space to talk about a game with structure without the negativity.

kyoryu
2022-04-27, 01:00 PM
I have found that people have started using the term Railroaded really aggressively any time I see a DM talk about having any kind of structure to a game. Having a less loaded term with less negative connotations adds space to talk about a game with structure without the negativity.

Linear/authored/whatever games get a bad rap. They're super common, and lots of people like them. There's no reason for them to have a negative connotation. There's tons of things they do better than more sandbox/emergent/open games - mostly in allowing the GM to really go to town on preparing cool and unique encounters/NPCs/etc.

Xervous
2022-04-27, 01:23 PM
Linear/authored/whatever games get a bad rap. They're super common, and lots of people like them. There's no reason for them to have a negative connotation. There's tons of things they do better than more sandbox/emergent/open games - mostly in allowing the GM to really go to town on preparing cool and unique encounters/NPCs/etc.

The main gripes I’ve seen here are ones I share. Tell me what you’re cooking with, some ingredients disagree with me something fierce. Caffeine isn’t bad, it just doesn’t end well for me. Same deal with certain styles and systems.

The main issue here appears to be the overlap of various definitions for a few common words.

Thrudd
2022-04-27, 01:24 PM
I'm going to repeat some definitions from the other thread that I came up with here as far as discussing scale. I can dig up the original, longer post, but in short:

Supermacro, Macro, Micro, and Supermicro

Supermacro: Details of the setting, and basic premise of the campaign (This campaign is about working for the King to find the Macguffin and stop the Demon King from Reawakening).

Macro: What we would consider the "Plot" of the campaign.

Micro: The Events and outcome of a given session.

Supermicro: The events and outcome of a specific scene.


So, if a game is "Authored" at the Macro level, that means that the PC's arrive at Ancient Ruins Island and need to recover the Tablet of Plot Advancement, because "Get the Tablet of Plot Advancement" is the next step of the authored plot.
In an Emergent Macro game, the same thing might be happening. It can be hard to nail down exactly where the line is, since big sweeping plot stuff like "Get the Macguffin" can come about pretty organically, if the GM presents a Problem to solve and a Macguffin that solves it, "The PC's go to get the Macguffin" can occur in both Emergent and Authored play.


That said, I think that part of the reason these discussions fall apart is because beyond talks of spectrums, there's a certain degree of Depth that can vary wildly.

Thinking about this quote from the OP



What does it mean for your choices to Matter.
Considering the following statements.

A) The PC's travel to Ancient Ruins Island
B) The PC's recover the Tablet of Plot Advancement
C) The PC's take the Tablet of Plot Advancement to the Gates of Doom
D) The PC's use the Tablet to perform the Rite of Sealing and close the Gates of Doom Forever.

The general impression is that if the above statements are all guaranteed to be true, then the game is Railroaded/Linear/Authored, and PC choices Don't Matter, except that if they fail, the plot stops and the game ends.


However, this clashes with a lot of people's experiences, where they are locked into a pre-written plot (Like in a Module), But they feel like they do get to make meaningful choices that matter.

This is because discussions like this rarely touch on the Depth of agency, instead focusing simply on "How many plot points are pre-written".

For example, imagine that, on Ancient Ruins Island, the PC's encounter a group of Immortal Lizardfolk who protect the Tablet. If the PC's fight their way through the Lizardfolk, they arrive at the Gates of Doom alone.

If they befriend the Lizardfolk and convince them to help, they arrive at the Gates of Doom at the head of an army of dinosaur-riding warriors.

This results in two dramatically different experiences, some might even call them different stories, based on the PC's choices and actions. In one, the final sequence at the Gates of Doom is a commando raid, as a small band of Heroes try to get in and do the Rite of Sealing before the forces of darkness know what's going on. In the other, it's a massive epic battle where victory means defeating the Forces of Darkness on the field so that the Rite can be completed.


And so when people say "I want to play a game where my choices Matter, and in an Authored Game they don't, because it's all prewritten" that clashes with other people's experience. Because for other players, a prewritten macro-level plot is kind of secondary to the rich, emergent experience going on at the Micro level. The decision to befriend the Lizardfolk is very much a meaningful choice that dramatically changes the experience of the game.


The key with my system above is that the actual Game is experienced at the Supermicro level, scene-by-scene, but discussions of railroading usually concern themselves with the Macro level, and discussions can quickly devolve into the idea that anything happening below the Macro level doesn't matter. That the actual content of the sessions is a minor detail, and so long as the major plot points are intact, you're not really exercising Agency. And so a statement like "I want my choices to Matter" still raises a lot of questions. Matter to who? To you, the player playing the game, or to somebody you're describing the game to in an elevator three months from now.


Edit:


There are a few other things that come to mind.

1) Player Driven vs PC Driven, or Choice vs Consequences.

If the Players say "We want to fight a Dragon" so the DM has a Dragon attack the town, then the Players got to control the story, but it wasn't really Emergent. Similarly, if the PC's decide to pick up some extra gold by robbing a random caravan, only to learn later that the Caravan belonged to a Dragon, and now the Dragon is attacking them, that's an "Emergent" story, but it wasn't necessarily the player's CHOICE to start a fight with a Dragon.


2) GM Created vs Pre-Written.

If the Players and PC's decide to deal with their Dragon Problem by forging a Dragonslaying Sword, and the GM responds by building a quest to get the materials, is that "Authored" or "Emergent". The PCs/Players were the impetus for forging the sword, but what they need to do to achieve that goal comes from the GM, unless there were pre-existing rules for forging a dragonslaying sword, and the relevant materials were already lying around where the PC's could get at them.

And, if you say "The PC's can only do things that the rules explicitly allow given details already provided", isn't that more limiting than letting them say "We would like to forge a dragonslaying Sword" and letting the GM work out what it takes to do that?


Edit 2) Rereading my above, it comes across as a little harsh to people who do demand macro-level emergent stories. There's nothing wrong with that.


But it's important to know what, specifically, you want, and be able to put that into words. If your definition is just "I want my choices to Matter", you're saying "Any agency at a level below this Does Not Matter", which is somewhat insulting to people who revel in the agency found at lower-levels. Tell my hypothetical party above that their choice to befriend the Lizardfolk didn't Matter simply because they left the island with the tablet.

All very excellent observations, showing how this isn't so straightforward.

not addressed specifically at anyone:

I think what really prompts these discussions, apart from the desire to analyze and classify things purely for the sake of doing so, is player complaints. If someone's players are complaining, it is worthwhile to figure out why and to address their concerns, if possible. Trying to define "railroading" and "player agency", and to create other similar metrics, are really attempts to define whatever it is we think are good/acceptable and bad gaming practices, and establish a shorthand for having discussions about how to be a better GM and address player concerns. It is also useful to prompt self-reflection and really probe what it is each of us want and expect from an RPG, as players and GMs, regardless of what conclusions we reach.

An accusation of "railroading", whether justified or not, is a complaint that indicates the players are unsatisfied with some element of the game. It can only be beneficial to figure out what it is they are really complaining about, and try to address their concerns. Maybe this means explaining your philosophy and methods about how you run the game, so that they no longer expect things to be different. Maybe, if you find out everyone really dislikes aspects of how you have been running things, you try to change things up to work better for your group. Maybe there aren't a lot of complaints, but if you find that a lot of players join your group and leave shortly afterwards with no explanation, you could ask them why they left - you might find out there is something they didn't like about how you do things, and knowing that could help make you a better GM.

In any case, if nobody is complaining about anything, then there is no real issue, regardless of how you do things.
Of course, nobody can please everyone, and if you and your main group are having a good time, there's no need to change.

BRC
2022-04-27, 01:30 PM
I have found that people have started using the term Railroaded really aggressively any time I see a DM talk about having any kind of structure to a game. Having a less loaded term with less negative connotations adds space to talk about a game with structure without the negativity.

The main gripes I’ve seen here are ones I share. Tell me what you’re cooking with, some ingredients disagree with me something fierce. Caffeine isn’t bad, it just doesn’t end well for me. Same deal with certain styles and systems.

The main issue here appears to be the overlap of various definitions for a few common words.


"Railroaded" is a term similar to "overcooked" or "Burnt". It has an inherently negative connotation.

If somebody says "I would like my steak Overcooked" that implies "I enjoy Bad Steaks"

Vs "I like my steak Very Well Done".


Kyoryu says "I like games where my choices Matter". From the other thread, IIRC Kyoryu specifically said they like games that would be Emergent at the Macro Level.

But by boiling that down to "I like a game where my Choices Matter" is like saying "I like a steak that has been Properly Cooked".

If you leave the statement without clarification, everybody is going to align what you said to their preconceived idea of what "Choices Matter" is, and you're unlikely to get the sort of game you want.

If you define your statement further, you've just said that anything with LESS agency than what you've described is something where your choices DON'T Matter, and the debate becomes "Do choices below the Macro level matter", or a sort of no-true-scotsman attack on people who care more about agency at the micro level.

So having clear terms that are not already used as statements of good and bad is helpful.

KorvinStarmast
2022-04-27, 01:42 PM
For many people, it is a strong predictor of whether or not they'll enjoy the game. Bias is a thing, understood.


I can assure you these differences are not "artificial" to me. They matter a great deal to me and my enjoyment of games. You have, in this "I know I won't like this" stance, glossed over procedurally generated sequences. (I am pretty sure you'd refer to them as emergent, and I certainly do) where a lot of agency is delegated to the die roll - it's a very unstructured case of "play and find out" style that I saw a lot of when the world started out as a big blank sheet of hexes with a few hexes filled in and nobody knew what was in the other hexes, including the referee.

maybe you've got some interest in claiming there isn't a difference for some reason. No interest whatsoever. I will say that I tire of the name calling that this discussion leads to, which is what this all amounts to.

If you ever think I am repeating Forge theory, you are 100% wrong. GNS is an abomination. Certainly not accusing you of that, sorry if it came across that way. My attempted allusion was not so much "Forge Theory" as the ripple effects of the meta level conversation, and its tone, on game and player preferences. The Big Model was a worthy attempt at a second draft, but it too seems to have been trying to sail too close to the wind. (But let's not derail there - I did use blue text and it was an attempt at humor - yeah, I won't quit my day job).

Because there are people that insist that you have to have a linear game with low agency to have a story. Since I am not one of them, how about you stop making the thinly veiled assertion that I am.

I've still never played a diceless game.
This one is fun and easy. (https://dig1000holes.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/what-is-a-roleplaying-game-by-epidiah-ravachol.pdf) What I really liked about it is that the first time we played it nobody in the room but me had any RPG experience.
I don't recall using dice in the games of Golden Sky Stories that we played, but it has tokens/game currency/points you can use or that you can pass to other players. I was never the GM for that, only a player. It has a very interesting feel to it.

Also, I know many immersion-first players that absolutely reject games that offer "meta" narrative abilities.
Bias is a thing.
But then, so is taste. Which leads me to your theme, which on further review looks like a case of arguing about taste.

So why does that lead to all of the name calling?

Satinavian
2022-04-27, 01:58 PM
I've acknowledged that authored games can have some level of freedom.

I think a good analogy is phase transitions in water. Above freezing, but below boiling, water is a liquid. Below freezing, it is a solid. That's mostly binary - excepting water that happens to be exactly 32 degrees that contains a mixture of the two, but certainly on a molecular level it's binary.

But that doesn't mean that all water is either "hot" at just under boiling or "cold" at some ridiculous level of cold. But it does mean that at a certain point, its nature changes in a fundamental way. In other words, the temperature can be a spectrum while the state of water is not.

That also doesn't mean that all "ice" is alike or all "water" is alike. Ice can be in various forms - icicles, cubes, snow, crushed ice, ice slicks, etc. Water can be pools, droplets, spray, mist, etc.
Metaphors help with misunderstandings. But we don't have a misunderstanding, we have a disagreement. There is no "point" where authored become emergent.

I've offered some high level differences that are fairly binary - does the GM plan out specific encounters, especially in a series or slightly branching structure, or do they not? Let's take for example this. You previously characterized a megadungeon as emergent. But what are most of the the rooms in that megadungeon if not planned out specific encounters ? Now they are not really in a series but certainly in a branched structure depending on the layout of the megadungeon, but that aside how are those different ?

If two groups go through the same content, will they more-or-less do the same things, or will the "stories" of the game be wildly different? They will be wildly different in many games you characterize as "authored"

After a scene, is the group free to decide what the next scene is, or are they effectively limited to pre-generated choices?Shouldn't "what is the next scene" come organically from "what happened in this scene" both for emergent and authored games anyway ? At least for the non-narrative games ? Or do you make the distinction whether the next scene options existed before ? But that is not true for many of the games you characterized as authored either, only for the most extreme kinds.



I can assure you these differences are not "artificial" to me. They matter a great deal to me and my enjoyment of games. Maybe they don't to you, or maybe you don't see the differences for some reason, or maybe you've got some interest in claiming there isn't a difference for some reason. I dunno. But they are absolutely real to me (and many others, as evidenced by the number of people talking about them for decades)Korvin didn't say the differences are artificial. Those are certainly real. The argument was that your line in the sand where authored ends and emergent begins was artificial and i agree with him though i would have instead called it arbitrary.

PhoenixPhyre
2022-04-27, 02:14 PM
Korvin didn't say the differences are artificial. Those are certainly real. The argument was that your line in the sand where authored ends and emergent begins was artificial and i agree with him though i would have instead called it arbitrary.

And I'd further say that in my experience any line would be arbitrary and miss a lot of things. Putting the whole related issue into one of two bins isn't going to work smoothly no matter how you define those two bins. Because it's a multidimensional, dense problem space.

NichG
2022-04-27, 02:45 PM
If we want an actual phase transition style theory for this stuff so we could actually experiment on whether it's continuous or discrete...

Have a pool of GMs each run campaigns for N players, for T sessions. Make a set of anonymized campaign summaries of fixed length describing the state of the entire campaign as of end of session. As T, N both go to infinity, calculate the mutual information between which set of players was playing and the summaries divided by the entropy of the distribution of summaries, for each GM. If the distribution of mutual information ratios becomes more bimodal as T increases, you've got distinct phases.

Arguments why it would - campaigns where the 'supermacro' structure is fixed would have to spend more of the bottleneck provided by the fixed length describing details that will not depend on the players. Whereas a single decision in session 1 could take an 'emergent' campaign in directions that become preserved - one group decides to become merchants, one group decides to open a restaurant, one group conquers a village and builds it into an empire, etc.

Arguments why it wouldn't - it's possible to have campaigns where the number of bits of supermacro control available are intentionally portioned out in a balanced way between participants at the table e.g. using some metacurrency, so that kind of thing could also happen organically. A GM could also author things using their knowledge of the individuals at the table, which could let them end up anywhere in the distribution.

Note however that ultimately this is intended as an empirical rather than theoretical standard. That is, we could always artificially construct a unimodal distribution of these ratios, but what actually happens naturally among tables just playing the game?

I would probably bet on something like this being a transition with a critical point rather a first order transition - something more like liquid-gas rather than solid-liquid. So in that sense, I'd expect some range of GM parameters (for example people running shared storytelling, GMless, etc kinds of things) beyond which the distinction breaks down, but another range within which the distinction is clean. I'm not sure what the equivalent of thermodynamic variables controlling the transition would be. I would bet against 'no transition at all' though.

KorvinStarmast
2022-04-27, 03:15 PM
If we want an actual phase transition style theory for this stuff so we could actually experiment on whether it's continuous or discrete... {snip the details} While I appreciate your appeal to the scientific method (*applause!* +many!) that looks a lot like work and not much like play, and thus of dubious merit as regards doing a fun thing in one's leisure time.

NichG
2022-04-27, 04:09 PM
While I appreciate your appeal to the scientific method (*applause!* +many!) that looks a lot like work and not much like play, and thus of dubious merit as regards doing a fun thing in one's leisure time.

It's also useful as a touch-point to avoid descending into 'yeah but it doesn't feel to me like it should be distinct, what about X example?' - if you were to put X through that protocol you could argue 'okay yes, X does belong to the class of asymptotically emergent games' or 'no, X doesn't, because as T->infinity, this thing will happen...'

For me, this resolves all of the arguments of the form 'sure, in the end the campaign is about defeating the demon lord in squad-based combat, but the party could decide to save the lizard village or burn it to the ground on the way to that end, so that's emergent right?', because if you're holding a specific end-point fixed and extend the campaign, all of those things that the party did will become a smaller and smaller portion of the material that has to be included in the summary for the overall story to make sense. It also brings in a way of thinking about what precisely it means to have a dichotomous system in a mushy reality - when a physicist talks about something being ice, they don't mean e.g. 'every single atom is in the place the global crystal structure would suggest it should be', they mean that the correlation lengthscale of those crystal parameters becomes infinite (or as big as the sample) - e.g. on average, atoms are influenced by the same orientation of the crystal cell everywhere in the sample even if locally you could have pockets or fluctuations away from orientational order.

The existence of bits of liquid-like behavior in solid phases or bits of solid-like behavior in liquid phases doesn't actually exclude the collective behavior of the material in the infinite limit from being definitively either liquid or solid, because as you go to that infinite limit the fluctuations matter less and less compared to the average. So likewise, a game that operates under the premise 'in the end, there is no planned plot, just what the PCs do' could have local scripted excursions and designed plotlines, but if the imprint of that act of scripting on the overall sequence of events becomes weaker and weaker as the campaign becomes longer, then the campaign as a whole may be described better by 'emergent' than by 'its a mix'.

Whether its useful to talk about infinite limits is another discussion entirely...

Easy e
2022-04-27, 04:20 PM
#3: The GM has a definite plot in mind, with a beginning, certain milestones, and a pre-defined ending. However, the game is run in a very improv style, and between those fixed points almost anything can happen. The GM uses subtle railroading / quantum ogres to make all the infinite possible paths converge on those fixed points, but does almost no actual "authoring" of material - the entire campaign notes fit on a single page.

This is pretty much every game I GM, and I have no idea how to describe it or how it fits into these endless rings of railroading vs. sandbox.

KorvinStarmast
2022-04-27, 10:33 PM
This is pretty much every game I GM, and I have no idea how to describe it or how it fits into these endless rings of railroading vs. sandbox. It doesn't need to fit into any of that. :smallsmile:

Stonehead
2022-04-27, 10:45 PM
As I like to describe it, the world does some things as a consequence of player actions and decisions, and the world does some things despite player actions and decisions.

I wouldn't say that exactly. Ignoring player actions and decisions is just bad DMing, not a style of game. I'd say it's a matter of how much initiative the world can take, independently of the players. When Joe Necromancer tries to take over the country, and stopping him takes up the entire campaign, I think that'd fall under "authored", but it says nothing about how much agency the players have.


This tends to be my experience when it comes to games that I actually enjoy. Usually there's something major happening in the world that you can antagonize or roll with as you'd like, though the DM probably has come up with a few ideas down the most likely routes. It seems that the definitions used in the OP's comments indicate that this is emergent gameplay, as this counts as a "world set up before hand with things going on" more so than a set story path.

So, provided the ending and middling bits are not set in stone (as in, the players role in the world), then the larger story beats planned by the GM become more "huge existing piece of material" as in icefractal's second example than "definite plot in mind, with some gaps in between" as in icefractal's third example.

This is why the binary explanation doesn't make sense to me, because it kind of implies that whether a game is "authored" or "emergent" entirely depends on whether or not the DM predicts and preps for the actions the players end up taking. Because again, 90% of the game was pretty standard "follow the plot hooks the DM prepares" stuff. Had the players decided to take down the invaders instead of evacuating, the game would have been "authored". Maybe that's fine, but it seems really weird to me.



It also feels like there's a lot of erasure of more emergent styles, or at least dismissal of the preference for them. "Well, if that's emergent, then this qualifies too." A lot of the "spectrum" arguments feel like this to me - I'm sitting there saying "no, that's not the thing I want" and I'm getting back "yeah, it kind of is." or "well your definition of linear is impossible, no games are like that" (when I've absolutely played a lot of games like that - nearly every adventure path, nearly every organized play group, and a lot of "regular" games. Or "haha, here's an element that proves that everything is really authored, so your preference doesn't exist! May as well just admit you enjoy authored stuff."


I think the heart of the issue may be how the thread was worded. Maybe I read the OP wrong, but to me, it sounded like you were saying "Here's a way to classify the two different types of games there are", and not "Here are the types of games I enjoy". The second point is a claim that can't really have counter arguments, but the first one definitely can. The arguments weren't "You actually like this kind of game", it's "The classification system doesn't seem to handle these types of games". Or at least, that's what my argument was supposed to be. Sorry if it didn't come across that way.

To me, the "strict dichotomy" argument sounds like trying to separate all games into "Literally zero player agency in the overarching game" and "Any amount of player agency that isn't zero". It works as a way to classify games I guess, but it doesn't seem very useful to me. Games with very little (but still some) emergent aspects seem closer to fully authored games than they do to fully emergent games.

I'm not trying to say that you should like adventure paths, I'm trying to say that there's a lot of space between adventure paths and full open-world sandboxes.

Easy e
2022-04-28, 11:12 AM
There's a conversation pattern happening in these that annoys me, and I'm not sure what causes it.

To me, a lot of this sounds like this:

Non-linear-gamers: "Hey, I really prefer games like this, and not like this. I've played both."
Others: "What you're saying isn't real. See, linear games do that too!"
NLG: "Uh, no, they don't. That's totally not my experience, and I don't like the thing you're talking about."
Others: "There's no difference, really."

... with some people going "well if I hide it it doesn't count" as a side dish.


Funny, as I read these discussions I see people who do not like the core assumption of GM based TTRPGs. That GM run TTRPGs are run on GM fiat by design.

They have fallen for the the Illusion of Choice so hard, that they think that games with a GM are somehow controlled by player choice, RNG, Story tropes, Rules, charts, etc. They are not. The GM is the only ones with power to shape the game.

Some GM based TTRPGs make the hand of GM Fiat more visible than others, while others try to obscure it or reign it in mechanically. However, the core of all of these games is still the GM making choices about things, including how much to let the players make choices.

I can only speculate that this deep seated desire to reduce GM Fiat as the primary design of GM based TTRPGs is because:

1. They had bad GMs that made the GM Fiat feel heavy and constricting on the game)

OR

2. They had really good GMs who made the GM Fiat feel weightless and invisible on the game


To me the distinction is not Railroad vs Sandbox, Authored or Emergent; it is how heavy the hand of the GM should be during game play. That is a spectrum and not easy to gauge, unless you are playing at the table with the group, and is subject to guess and check feedback loops.

Quertus
2022-04-28, 11:27 AM
@NichG - are you actually trying to give people something testable and definitive, so they don’t have to argue pointlessly any more? C’mon, nobody’s gonna want that! :smalltongue:


"Railroaded" is a term similar to "overcooked" or "Burnt". It has an inherently negative connotation.

If somebody says "I would like my steak Overcooked" that implies "I enjoy Bad Steaks"

Vs "I like my steak Very Well Done".


Kyoryu says "I like games where my choices Matter". From the other thread, IIRC Kyoryu specifically said they like games that would be Emergent at the Macro Level.

But by boiling that down to "I like a game where my Choices Matter" is like saying "I like a steak that has been Properly Cooked".

If you leave the statement without clarification, everybody is going to align what you said to their preconceived idea of what "Choices Matter" is, and you're unlikely to get the sort of game you want.

If you define your statement further, you've just said that anything with LESS agency than what you've described is something where your choices DON'T Matter, and the debate becomes "Do choices below the Macro level matter", or a sort of no-true-scotsman attack on people who care more about agency at the micro level.

So having clear terms that are not already used as statements of good and bad is helpful.

I think that this is the best / easiest to understand explanation in this thread. Kudos!

I must say, though, that I’m liable to be guilty of saying “I like games where my choices matter”, without qualification, because I mean matter at all layers. My choice of character changing the outcome(s) of the game is the first battle line in the war for player agency.


This is pretty much every game I GM, and I have no idea how to describe it or how it fits into these endless rings of railroading vs. sandbox.

Sigh. “Linear” vs “Sandbox”; “Railroading” is something else entirely.


When Joe Necromancer tries to take over the country, and stopping him takes up the entire campaign, I think that'd fall under "authored", but it says nothing about how much agency the players have.

“Authored” at the macro level.

Easy e
2022-04-28, 12:59 PM
Sigh. “Linear” vs “Sandbox”; “Railroading” is something else entirely.



Great. I am unsure how the style of game IceFractal described below fits into the linear vs sandbox dichotomy then.

This one:



#3: The GM has a definite plot in mind, with a beginning, certain milestones, and a pre-defined ending. However, the game is run in a very improv style, and between those fixed points almost anything can happen. The GM uses subtle railroading / quantum ogres to make all the infinite possible paths converge on those fixed points, but does almost no actual "authoring" of material - the entire campaign notes fit on a single page.

Edit: Or authored vs emergent for that matter......

BRC
2022-04-28, 01:00 PM
Great. I am unsure how the style of game IceFractal described below fits into the linear vs sandbox dichotomy then.

This one:

Within the Dichotomy, that game is Linear.

In my system, that would be Authored at the Supermacro and Macro levels, emergent below that.

Edit: to explain

A "Sandbox" game is one that I would call Emergent at all levels. The GM creates the setting, but beyond "Go seek adventure within this world" there is no overarching campaign concept (Emergent at the Supermacro Level).
There CAN be events in motion, but none that would compel the PC's to focus the campaign around interacting with them.

KorvinStarmast
2022-04-28, 02:36 PM
I wouldn't say that exactly. Ignoring player actions and decisions is just bad DMing, not a style of game. You clearly misunderstood what I was getting across there. The world is much bigger than the players.

Where the players are making choices and engaging with the world a variety of things happen that are related to what the players are doing.

A few hundred miles away, or one plane over, there's a skirmish between two forces on a shared border that happens despite what the players are doing - whose result is a die roll which then has an outcome which may or may not impact the players in the near term, but which has potential to present its result to them for a new situation X, Y, or Z in the medium to longer term ... or, they never go that way and it just happens off screen when their choices take them elsewhere.
It happened despite the players because the world keeps existing regardless of whether or not the players live or die, succeed or fail, retire or keep adventuring.
Yes, that is a play style, one I've seen and used since I first started playing RPGs.
You calling it "bad DMing" is simply wrong.

Tanarii
2022-04-28, 02:53 PM
This is pretty much every game I GM, and I have no idea how to describe it or how it fits into these endless rings of railroading vs. sandbox.
If the DM negates player agency to make sure they get to those things, it's railroading.
If the DM hides the negation of agency by presenting an illusionary choice, it's illusionism and railroading.
If the DM hides the negation of agency by presenting an illusionary choice between three different woods, but in reality specifically the first wood travelled to will have an Ogre encounter and the second will have the macguffin, it's a quantum ogre and illusionism and railroading.

That's what the terms railroading, illusionism and quantum ogre actually means.

Satinavian
2022-04-28, 03:07 PM
Funny, as I read these discussions I see people who do not like the core assumption of GM based TTRPGs. That GM run TTRPGs are run on GM fiat by design.
Maybe you should play a game without GM for a while to challange your "core assumptions"



They have fallen for the the Illusion of Choice so hard, that they think that games with a GM are somehow controlled by player choice, RNG, Story tropes, Rules, charts, etc. They are not. The GM is the only ones with power to shape the game. That is common, but not universal, even if GMs exist. System and table rules can restrict GM powers a lot.

Some GM based TTRPGs make the hand of GM Fiat more visible than others, while others try to obscure it or reign it in mechanically. However, the core of all of these games is still the GM making choices about things, including how much to let the players make choices.

I can only speculate that this deep seated desire to reduce GM Fiat as the primary design of GM based TTRPGs is because:

1. They had bad GMs that made the GM Fiat feel heavy and constricting on the game)

OR

2. They had really good GMs who made the GM Fiat feel weightless and invisible on the game

Except that most of the people you argue with are GMs as well. And those tend to know whether their players have real choices or not and if they as GMs operate under restrictions.

@ Tanarii

Good explaination.

Telok
2022-04-28, 03:38 PM
They have fallen for the the Illusion of Choice so hard, that they think that games with a GM are somehow controlled by player choice, RNG, Story tropes, Rules, charts, etc. They are not. The GM is the only ones with power to shape the game.

Wait a sec, so an exchange like this:

Dm:"Ok, thats the current stuff mostly wrapped up. What do you lot want to do next?"
Pcs:"We want to go find a person who can make a thing and get them to make some stuff for us."
Dm:"Hmm. Ok, there are people around like that. We'll wrap up here tonight and I'll randomly generate some people, leads, etc., for next time."

That's the DM being the only one shaping the game?

NichG
2022-04-28, 03:48 PM
It's generally unhelpful to let category words fall into a 'good style vs bad style' dichotomy, since then people are going to be more concerned with making sure that their style doesn't get defined away as being part of the 'bad ones' by the community. So in something like 'authored vs emergent', care should be taken not to view 'authored' as meaning 'bad', or it'll end up in the same place as any 'good word vs bad word' definition war.

Saying e.g. 'my preferred style of game is authored at the super-macro, emergent at the macro, and authored again at the micro' or 'give me authored at all levels' or 'give me emergent at all levels' should be seen as both a legitimate taste to play in and to run.

And I think you can even extend the principle of emergent vs authored to GM-less games if you read them in the sense of whether things that happen are influenced more by pre-decision or by decision in the heat of the moment. Something like Microscope has explicit warnings not to take decisions to committee or pre-plan or pre-discuss them; presumably the mirror universe version of Microscope where you negotiate everything out before formally having each person author their scene/etc would be a highly Authored experience, even though it'd still be GM-less.

PhoenixPhyre
2022-04-28, 04:33 PM
It's generally unhelpful to let category words fall into a 'good style vs bad style' dichotomy, since then people are going to be more concerned with making sure that their style doesn't get defined away as being part of the 'bad ones' by the community. So in something like 'authored vs emergent', care should be taken not to view 'authored' as meaning 'bad', or it'll end up in the same place as any 'good word vs bad word' definition war.

Saying e.g. 'my preferred style of game is authored at the super-macro, emergent at the macro, and authored again at the micro' or 'give me authored at all levels' or 'give me emergent at all levels' should be seen as both a legitimate taste to play in and to run.


I completely agree with this. Dichotomies naturally trend toward "good vs bad", even if that's really only "things I personally like vs things I personally dislike". The idea of authored vs emergent at different scopes (and the definitions of those can flex depending on the exact scope we're looking at) is useful, within reason, as a model and as a means of enabling discourse. With the understanding that it, like all other models of subjective things, is not an intrinsic property but simply a lossy model, to be used where it provides value. But using it as a purely dichotomous definition where authored at any scope means not emergent at all (but not vice versa--authored is "stronger" in that sense in that dichotomy model) doesn't seem to provide value for me.

There's also the question of timing of authorship.

Consider two campaign styles.

1. The DM (or module writer) plans out all the major scenes at T = 0. They know all the major story beats, where it will start and where it will end. This is obviously authored at several scopes (Supermacro and macro certainly, with the others depending on the details).
2. The DM plans for the course of an arc. They know what major bombs will be thrown, and have a pretty good idea of what will happen (because they know their players and how they'll react to the bombs, as well as what they've said they want to do) over the next few sessions. And may even have a rough idea of the Supermacro scale--based on where they are right now and what they've done, there are {set of discrete next arcs, known at the "main goal" level} that are reasonable. But at the end of each session, plans for the future are revisited (with more attention to the nearer ones) based on the events of the previous session. Effectively iterative planning.

In #1, the course is basically set from T = 0. Even if there's some frothing at the micro and super-micro scale, the macro+ is set. In #2 looking back, it may look like the campaign was like #1. Everything (if done well) falls into place along a few coherent threads. But at any time, the future is still indeterminate. And what you do now affects the "window function" that determines what next things are possible. There's no known end state except possibly (and only tentatively) for this current arc. Here, you can have each and every scene be authored in advance (authored micro) but the macro and supermacro are completely emergent. Because the macro and supermacro depend on the outcomes of the micro level. As long as there are multiple possible outcomes for each scene and the DM is willing to accept ones he didn't expect or plan for explicitly.

The first is a top-down authoring. The supermacro determines macro which determines micro which (possibly) determines supermicro. The second is "middle outward, Just in Time" "authoring". The micro is chosen immediately before it begins, as a function (a biased one) of the past events. And the macro ends up looking authored based on the accumulated micro. And the supermacro appears out of that.

NichG
2022-04-28, 05:13 PM
I completely agree with this. Dichotomies naturally trend toward "good vs bad", even if that's really only "things I personally like vs things I personally dislike". The idea of authored vs emergent at different scopes (and the definitions of those can flex depending on the exact scope we're looking at) is useful, within reason, as a model and as a means of enabling discourse. With the understanding that it, like all other models of subjective things, is not an intrinsic property but simply a lossy model, to be used where it provides value. But using it as a purely dichotomous definition where authored at any scope means not emergent at all (but not vice versa--authored is "stronger" in that sense in that dichotomy model) doesn't seem to provide value for me.

There's also the question of timing of authorship.

Consider two campaign styles.

1. The DM (or module writer) plans out all the major scenes at T = 0. They know all the major story beats, where it will start and where it will end. This is obviously authored at several scopes (Supermacro and macro certainly, with the others depending on the details).
2. The DM plans for the course of an arc. They know what major bombs will be thrown, and have a pretty good idea of what will happen (because they know their players and how they'll react to the bombs, as well as what they've said they want to do) over the next few sessions. And may even have a rough idea of the Supermacro scale--based on where they are right now and what they've done, there are {set of discrete next arcs, known at the "main goal" level} that are reasonable. But at the end of each session, plans for the future are revisited (with more attention to the nearer ones) based on the events of the previous session. Effectively iterative planning.

In #1, the course is basically set from T = 0. Even if there's some frothing at the micro and super-micro scale, the macro+ is set. In #2 looking back, it may look like the campaign was like #1. Everything (if done well) falls into place along a few coherent threads. But at any time, the future is still indeterminate. And what you do now affects the "window function" that determines what next things are possible. There's no known end state except possibly (and only tentatively) for this current arc. Here, you can have each and every scene be authored in advance (authored micro) but the macro and supermacro are completely emergent. Because the macro and supermacro depend on the outcomes of the micro level. As long as there are multiple possible outcomes for each scene and the DM is willing to accept ones he didn't expect or plan for explicitly.

The first is a top-down authoring. The supermacro determines macro which determines micro which (possibly) determines supermicro. The second is "middle outward, Just in Time" "authoring". The micro is chosen immediately before it begins, as a function (a biased one) of the past events. And the macro ends up looking authored based on the accumulated micro. And the supermacro appears out of that.

Yeah, though I think there is actually an empirical question buried in all of this rather than just a semantics one, which is whether or not there's an innate tendency for the influence of authorship or the influence of emergence to grow towards an extreme as one extends the campaign because of the way that iterative planning behaves. There's a sort of butterfly effect argument for one end of that existing - small amounts of emergence can ultimately lead to large deviations, if everything follows from the previous thing and generally stuff is interdependent (high-interaction regime). There's also a sort of zeitgeist of the alternate being true, that e.g. when people do speculative fiction or even just fanfiction, there's some river of history built out of larger scale realities that individual actions can't budge even through the lever of time.

So the empirical question is the degree to which these views or beliefs manifest in the action sorts of variabilities that exist when people run games? Does the distribution of impacts of particular player choices on the setting fall into a bimodal distribution across games people run, and is that just reflecting an underlying distribution of meta-beliefs about the nature of consequence, or does it arise from the actual mechanics of 'iterative planning'? Both? Neither?

That's I guess the thing that makes this interesting to me beyond the railroad/linear/sandbox/etc distinctions - feels like there's more potential for something here than just a way to badwrongfun at people.

Lord Raziere
2022-04-28, 05:50 PM
There's also a sort of zeitgeist of the alternate being true, that e.g. when people do speculative fiction or even just fanfiction, there's some river of history built out of larger scale realities that individual actions can't budge even through the lever of time.


I mean, depending on work, that could just be laziness.

if your a sci-fi author writing something in the vein of the Foundation novels, sure thats the intention. if your one of the many naruto fan fictions that make a change to naruto but some reason still does land of waves arc, its probably just laziness.

Lucas Yew
2022-04-28, 07:48 PM
Supermacro: Details of the setting, and basic premise of the campaign (This campaign is about working for the King to find the Macguffin and stop the Demon King from Reawakening).

Macro: What we would consider the "Plot" of the campaign.

Micro: The Events and outcome of a given session.

Supermicro: The events and outcome of a specific scene.


If the DM negates player agency to make sure they get to those things, it's railroading.
If the DM hides the negation of agency by presenting an illusionary choice, it's illusionism and railroading.
If the DM hides the negation of agency by presenting an illusionary choice between three different woods, but in reality specifically the first wood travelled to will have an Ogre encounter and the second will have the macguffin, it's a quantum ogre and illusionism and railroading.

That's what the terms railroading, illusionism and quantum ogre actually means.

Gathering some good-felt classifications intrathread...

PhoenixPhyre
2022-04-28, 08:52 PM
Yeah, though I think there is actually an empirical question buried in all of this rather than just a semantics one, which is whether or not there's an innate tendency for the influence of authorship or the influence of emergence to grow towards an extreme as one extends the campaign because of the way that iterative planning behaves. There's a sort of butterfly effect argument for one end of that existing - small amounts of emergence can ultimately lead to large deviations, if everything follows from the previous thing and generally stuff is interdependent (high-interaction regime). There's also a sort of zeitgeist of the alternate being true, that e.g. when people do speculative fiction or even just fanfiction, there's some river of history built out of larger scale realities that individual actions can't budge even through the lever of time.

So the empirical question is the degree to which these views or beliefs manifest in the action sorts of variabilities that exist when people run games? Does the distribution of impacts of particular player choices on the setting fall into a bimodal distribution across games people run, and is that just reflecting an underlying distribution of meta-beliefs about the nature of consequence, or does it arise from the actual mechanics of 'iterative planning'? Both? Neither?

That's I guess the thing that makes this interesting to me beyond the railroad/linear/sandbox/etc distinctions - feels like there's more potential for something here than just a way to badwrongfun at people.


I mean, depending on work, that could just be laziness.

if your a sci-fi author writing something in the vein of the Foundation novels, sure thats the intention. if your one of the many naruto fan fictions that make a change to naruto but some reason still does land of waves arc, its probably just laziness.

Personally, I'm more of the "history has momentum" position. Not insuperable momentum, but butterfly effects tend to damp out in both space and time. Change a character's hair color? Meh. No substantial change. Change a Naruto character's powerset in a significant way? Probably a bigger change. Change how chakra works? Huge change.

Effectively, changes tend to primarily affect their own level of detail unless they happen at a critical moment or at a critical point. 99 times out of a hundred, that penny on the railroad tracks mostly just gets flattened. But that one time...

I treat adventurers (specifically PCs) as catalysts of change. The setting exists, and the setting is mostly stable. At least with respect to the NPCs. But the PCs are an unpredictable force and we're playing to find out how things evolve because of them. But their changes are generally bounded--unless they move something deliberately or in a substantial way and set up a new stable equilibrium, the locals will generally go back to their old ways fairly soon.


This is important because I'm currently doing an arc where the PCs are involved with timey-wimey shenanigans. Involving three major timeline "bundles"[1] that have become shattered and intermingled in a local area. The PCs, it turns out, were actually instrumental in creating one of those timelines (by interfering with an attempted assassination). But before (subjectively) they did that, they'd already interacted with a detached fragment of that timeline bundle and brought it into their "primary" timeline. And that fragment was from their past but after the timelines split. So they must have split the timelines, yeah? It's fated, right? Not really. If they hadn't, someone would have. By interacting with the timelines, the fact that the timelines were split is "baked in" and has momentum. So the universe in order to maintain consistency, would demand someone do it.

And by doing so, they altered their own timeline via the fragments that had been shattered and brought in. Because the timeline that they sparked was slightly different than the one that someone else would have sparked. For example, one of the NPCs they'd interacted with in their main timeline was a horny skeeze of a human male, lusting after his (succubus) boss. After they made that change, the person filling that role is a (rather boring) triton female who has professional relationships with her (succubus????) boss. And a few other things changed. But their backstories are still conserved except for tiny little details.

[1] Every action splits a timeline, but most of them tend to converge into a few "bundles", with some fuzziness. Just like you can treat a piece of yarn as a single fiber for most macro-scale purposes, each "bundle" is really a myriad of timelines but in the macro-analysis all are basically the same.


This means that while their actions at the micro scale propagate, they don't do so endlessly. It's a damped system; ripples tend to die out. Each arc generally has 2-5 lasting changes that carry on to another arc. I don't know what those are going to be (or where the arcs will end or how they'll develop or what the next arc will be) before hand, but I know that once an arc is done I don't have to carry all the details along to the next one. Just a few "headline changes". And within an arc, events tend to develop fairly predictably and linearly--not because the players are forced into a path, but because they tend to stick with something until it has come to some sort of conclusion. If I played with more chaotic players (as opposed to characters, all the characters are always firmly on the chaotic end) that might be different.

/rambling

Stonehead
2022-04-28, 09:57 PM
You clearly misunderstood what I was getting across there. The world is much bigger than the players.

Where the players are making choices and engaging with the world a variety of things happen that are related to what the players are doing.

A few hundred miles away, or one plane over, there's a skirmish between two forces on a shared border that happens despite what the players are doing - whose result is a die roll which then has an outcome which may or may not impact the players in the near term, but which has potential to present its result to them for a new situation X, Y, or Z in the medium to longer term ... or, they never go that way and it just happens off screen when their choices take them elsewhere.
It happened despite the players because the world keeps existing regardless of whether or not the players live or die, succeed or fail, retire or keep adventuring.
Yes, that is a play style, one I've seen and used since I first started playing RPGs.
You calling it "bad DMing" is simply wrong.

Maybe it was just word choice, but "despite" usually means "in spite of". Where the events happen even though the players made choices to prevent them. Like the scenario where the DM preps his boss fight on the top of the wizard's tower, so no matter how hard the players try to avoid it, they are going to end up on the wizard tower for the finale. I know it's subjective and all that, but that hypothetical I'm comfortable with calling bad DMing.

Your example is perfectly fine. I would probably say "independently" of the players, not "despite" them, but that's just semantics. Clearly I misunderstood your point.:smalltongue:


Funny, as I read these discussions I see people who do not like the core assumption of GM based TTRPGs. That GM run TTRPGs are run on GM fiat by design.

They have fallen for the the Illusion of Choice so hard, that they think that games with a GM are somehow controlled by player choice, RNG, Story tropes, Rules, charts, etc. They are not. The GM is the only ones with power to shape the game.

Some GM based TTRPGs make the hand of GM Fiat more visible than others, while others try to obscure it or reign it in mechanically. However, the core of all of these games is still the GM making choices about things, including how much to let the players make choices.

I can only speculate that this deep seated desire to reduce GM Fiat as the primary design of GM based TTRPGs is because:

1. They had bad GMs that made the GM Fiat feel heavy and constricting on the game)

OR

2. They had really good GMs who made the GM Fiat feel weightless and invisible on the game


To me the distinction is not Railroad vs Sandbox, Authored or Emergent; it is how heavy the hand of the GM should be during game play. That is a spectrum and not easy to gauge, unless you are playing at the table with the group, and is subject to guess and check feedback loops.

This is really interesting to me. It seems like other people are describing the types of games they play, and you're saying those types of games can't exist. And you're saying the reason they think they exist, is because they haven't played in enough types of games.

If the DM "decides" to let the players have control over their own characters, and the players come up with some novel actions, it seems like quite a stretch to say those actions happened by DM fiat.

If someone at the table asks "Why did Galahad chase after those goblins?", then "DM fiat" seems like a really bad answer to that question. A good answer would involve the player talking about their character's motivations.

You could probably technically say a character's actions are a distant consequence of DM fiat, but that's like saying I made a sandwich because of the 4 fundamental forces of physics. It's just not a useful way to talk about anything.

Cheesegear
2022-04-28, 10:20 PM
However, the core of all of these games is still the GM making choices about things, including how much to let the players make choices.

My favourite is when people try to twist the definition of 'Negating player choice' to not mean exactly what it says.

'Well that's not [the bad thing], that's just DMing.'

Okay, we agree. If [the bad thing] is just DMing, then all DMs do [the bad thing], because [the bad thing] and DMing are inextricably linked under their definition of DMing. Crazy.

Noooo.....


To me the distinction is [...] how heavy the hand of the GM should be during game play.

As in the last several threads, I'm going to agree here, too.

If all DMs do [the bad thing] (as I believe that they do):
- How often do they do it?
- For what purpose?

Like I said, in a sarcastic point; 'You start in [arbitrary location].' is already a loaded sentence. The very first sentence of almost any game already in the DM's favour;
I've never let my players choose where they start the game. Literally never. I strongly doubt any DM has, and if they have, I don't believe they do it regularly.

Tanarii
2022-04-28, 10:34 PM
It's certainly an interesting view that the start conditions could indeed be considered a Railroad that leads from "agreeing to join and play in a game with start condition A" through "creating a character that would arrive at start condition A somehow" to "start condition A". Most people probably discount it because it's part and parcel of signing up for that game. (If it wasn't, the requirements to be allowed to sign up were not clear.) And getting off that "Railroad" is generally much less painful than one later on. Because usually you never get on it in the first place, because you just don't sign up for the game. (Unless it was misrepresented, at which point you might have wasted your time creating a character when you get off and walk out of the first session.)

But it's not one that's inherent to all TTRPGs. There are quite a few where the players effectively define the start condition, within parameters set out by the game. And even if there are parameters, they still get agency to choose among them, so there is no Railroad to get to the start condition.

An example of such a game is Mutant Year Zero. You get to design your Ark, you pick where on the map it goes, and you even get to define who the Bosses and other relevant NPCs are with your characters relationships to them, and where they live in the Ark. The Parameters are you're playing mutants in the Zone who live in an Ark with N amount of 'build points'. This is quite clearly not a Railroad to a start condition.

NichG
2022-04-28, 10:43 PM
Like I said, in a sarcastic point; 'You start in [arbitrary location].' is already a loaded sentence. The very first sentence of almost any game already in the DM's favour;
I've never let my players choose where they start the game. Literally never. I strongly doubt any DM has, and if they have, I don't believe they do it regularly.

I had a DM basically let each player define the entire universe their character came from and how that universe ended... Next thing I'm running, the players as a group are building the entire setting using Microscope...

The world is wide.

PhoenixPhyre
2022-04-28, 11:00 PM
I've never let my players choose where they start the game. Literally never. I strongly doubt any DM has, and if they have, I don't believe they do it regularly.

My general policy for new players to my world is

"Here is the world at <year>. Here are a selection of starter quest blurbs, designed to get you comfortable with the world and doing something. Which one do we want to pursue?" This may even be before characters are created. Or afterward. And all I have are blurbs--the actual details of the quests and even more than a one-to-two sentence description of the immediate area are built after I know who the characters are and some of what they want. And they don't even really have to pursue that first quest very far--just really the first session.

For people who have played before in the settings (like one of my current campaigns), it's

"ok here's the whole world map. Here are the (one sentence) descriptions of what I know about each general area. Where do we want to play next? What kinds of themes are we interested in? High-flying? More grounded? What kinds of creatures?" My current party decided to pick an area I knew approximately zero about, and then we built characters. But we did this well in advance of finishing the first campaign, so I did world-building (high-level planning, more "what's there" than anything) well in advance.

Both of those are basically "let[ting] my players choose where they start the game". And I've done that since...well...the 3rd or 4th campaign I've ever done in this world. Now at campaign 16. And I play basically stock D&D 5e (mechanically, the world is very non-standard).

Cheesegear
2022-04-28, 11:42 PM
It's certainly an interesting view that the start conditions could indeed be considered a Railroad that leads from "agreeing to join and play in a game with start condition A" through "creating a character that would arrive at start condition A somehow" to "start condition A". Most people probably discount it because it's part and parcel of signing up for that game.

That's kind of Easy e's point.

Part of signing up to a GM-moderated game, is accepting that the GM holds all the power, and that every arbitrary decision that a GM ever makes, is 'negating player choices'. So that in effect, if you frame [the bad thing] as 'negating player choices', you have to accept that all GMs - even the ones on this forum that claim that they don't - make arbitrary decisions based on nothing, without player input or affectation, all the time.

DM: You come across a band of goblins.
Players: No we don't. We came across some friendly Commoners sitting in a field. That's what we choose. So **** your Goblins.

Now again, the situation describes some hostile players. But the point is very real. DMs make decisions outside the players' control all the time. Anything the DM plans, is outside the player's control. The players can react to a scenario in any way they choose...But they are forced to react to that scenario. When do the players get to create the scenario? They don't.

This is why framing it as a player agency issue is so...Egregious. 'Cause if you really, really think about it, as Easy e has, players only have as much agency as the DM gives them, and quite often they have no agency at all:

'Well, the DM has to plan, right? Otherwise how does anything get done? That way lies Entropy Dragons.'
Correct. The DM does have to plan. The DM does have to make several decisions outside the players' agency. All the time. No, like...All the time.
'But that's just like, DMing, man.'

But you framed the issue around 'negating player choice/agency.' Which encompasses so many things that yes, a DM does - even the 'good' ones.


An example of such a game is Mutant Year Zero. You get to design your Ark, you pick where on the map it goes, and you even get to define who the Bosses and other relevant NPCs are with your characters relationships to them, and where they live in the Ark. The Parameters are you're playing mutants in the Zone who live in an Ark with N amount of 'build points'. This is quite clearly not a Railroad to a start condition.

I have never heard of such a thing, and yes that is the exact counter to my point. It may even be the exception that proves the rule?

Tanarii
2022-04-28, 11:53 PM
No, that's not a valid point. The DM can generate the content procedurally depending on player choices on where to go and what to do. The DM can place the content and let the players desire where to go within it, give them rumors or let them research info on where to go, and let them scout it out.

Neither of those are actively negating player agency. Players not getting to design the content is not negating player agency.

Negating player agency is negating their active decisions so they must encounter specific content.

There's a valid point to be made that forced starting conditions may negate their ability to make decisions about encountering starting content. But it's very easy for a DM not to do that once the game starts.

Cheesegear
2022-04-29, 12:00 AM
The DM can generate the content...

The DM can place the content...

The DM creates the content. End.

DM: As you're walking through the Forest, you come across a band of Goblins.
Player: Wrong. I came across a bear.
DM: ...But there are Goblins here.
Player: This sounds like a railroad. I want to fight a Bear, not Goblins. Please respect my agency and remove the Goblins from the forest. I didn't choose for them to be there. I chose a Bear.

That's not how anything works. You and I both know that.

Satinavian
2022-04-29, 12:48 AM
T
DM: You come across a band of goblins.
Players: No we don't. We came across some friendly Commoners sitting in a field.
Yes, there are games out there that work exactly this way.

It is not my preferred style, but it sure does exist.

Telok
2022-04-29, 12:48 AM
The DM creates the content. End.

DM: As you're walking through the Forest, you come across a band of Goblins.
Player: Wrong. I came across a bear.
DM: ...But there are Goblins here.
Player: This sounds like a railroad. I want to fight a Bear, not Goblins. Please respect my agency and remove the Goblins from the forest. I didn't choose for them to be there. I chose a Bear.

That's not how anything works. You and I both know that.

Heh, Amber Diceless. The DM drops goblins, the PCs walk past a tree, the PCs get the bear they want. Tho honestly, "goblins" in that game could be anything from D&D chaff mobs to seriously powerful fey. But if they aren't Amberites or from the Courts of Chaos then they can't do anything about the PCs stepping to the next shadow with a bear.

Composer99
2022-04-29, 12:49 AM
Easy e, I have to say the way you frame the issue is not entirely correct, and is in any event really rather reductionist to the point of not being all that useful for discussion.

Who gets to "have a say" in what happens in an RPG is some combination of GM, system, or players, with the precise balance depending on the system. Certainly many GM-mediated games, such as D&D, assume an overabundance of "GM says", but even with a GM that's not the case in other games. But even in D&D there is a lot of "system says what happens" going on. For instance, most players would rightly balk if a DM continually overrides, say, the procedure for making attacks (which is a "system says" part of the game) when no agreement for such behaviour was part of the social contract, you might say, for that table and campaign.

(I will here note that there is no actual rule in the 5e DMG - that I have found upon recent re-reading, that is - that says the DM can simply disregard, ignore, or break any of the non-optional/variant "system says" rules. DMs are expected to follow the rules for attack rolls, for resolving spell effects, and so on. The closest the DMG gets to this is suggesting that rolling behind a screen allows DMs to fudge if they feel the need to.)

What is more, there is to my mind a pretty obvious difference between a DM who uses some combination of deceit, compulsion, or manipulation to deny the players whatever say they may normally have in establishing what happens during gameplay and a DM who doesn't - even in a heavily GM/DM-mediated game, such as D&D, where the rules more or less restrict the "players say" element to "the players say what their characters think, feel, speak, do, or attempt to do".

Likewise, by my reckoning there's a pretty obvious difference between a DM/GM who (pick one):
(1) Doesn't know what happens next (at a given scale of gameplay or metagame) and relies on some combination of player decision, "system says" (mechanics such as, say, reaction rolls), and GM decision (whether based on fictional positioning, metanarrative, or metagame factors, etc. (*)) to help figure it out.
(2) Knows what's going to happen next, whether to some level of detail or just in broad strokes, and shapes or adjusts the happening based on the players' decisions (as well as "system says" mechanics and GM-facing considerations)
(3) Knows what's going to happen next and uses some combination of deceit, manipulation, or compulsion to prevent the players' decisions from having any impact on the outcome. (**)

If the discussion begins and ends with your assertion, "The GM is the only ones with power to shape the game", these distinctions are all smeared together into "GM Fiat Über Alles", which is unhelpful to say the least.

(*) Metagame factors could include considerations such as "Our 'fighty' and 'drama' players are starting to get bored as we haven't had a combat in over an hour. Better throw something in there to spice things up!" or "Geez, it's 10:30, better wrap things up!"

(**) Out of these three, (1) strikes me as mostly lining up with kyoryu's definition of emergence/emergent gameplay, (2) strikes me as mostly lining up with kyoryu's definition of authored gameplay, and (3) is what I personally would call railroading (and the term also applies to the DM/GM who uses the same techniques to deny the players the "players say" part of getting to say what happens in the game).

KorvinStarmast
2022-04-29, 07:38 AM
Next thing I'm running, the players as a group are building the entire setting using Microscope. I have Microscope, but I've not got an in person group to try that ... and based on my preferences, I'd really like to have the players invested in the world by having helped to create it.

I have never heard of such a thing, and yes that is the exact counter to my point. It may even be the exception that proves the rule? The original play style of the wilderness adventure lent itself to procedurally generated content that both the DM and players would not have prepared ahead of time. (Dungeons not as much, but if you really did roll random encounters based on dungeon level for wandering monsters, you once again have content and encounters that are an unknown to both the players and the DM when they occur.

We had loads of fun doing both.

I tend now to curate lists of "wandering monsters/NPCs who are logically in the area because of {X} reason" because we have found that this lends more coherence to the setting we are playing in. (And not all of those encounters will necessarily be 'level appropriate' even though I am running 5e).

Tanarii
2022-04-29, 07:56 AM
Player: This sounds like a railroad. I want to fight a Bear, not Goblins. Please respect my agency and remove the Goblins from the forest. I didn't choose for them to be there. I chose a Bear.
The problem here is you (and this made up player) don't understand what player agency is, and as a result the difference between limited player agency (not railroading) and negated player agency (railroading).

Just to start with, player agency is about making decisions for what their characters attempt to do within the fantasy environment (aka roleplaying), not defining the fantasy environment itself. And that's before we get into limited options vs active negation of choices made.

clash
2022-04-29, 09:11 AM
Having followed this discussion I like the terms authored and emergent but I would like to propose a third term to be used in conjunction with those two.

Divergent: An authored game where player choices have the ability to change any part of the pre-written story.

When I dm I know at a super macro and macro level what the story is going to be. When the campaign starts. I know at the start of a session what the story is going to be at a micro level as well, but having the story pre written doesn't prevent player choices from changing it at any level. The players often diverge from the authored narrative at the micro level and given the right choices could easily derail the story at a macro and super macro level. At which point the rest of the session will be improv and the story is re-authored at a macro and super macro level in response.

90% of the time they follow along with the authored content but that doesn't prevent them from diverging from it at any level.

So I purpose authored, emergent and divergent.

As an example to divergent in the campaign I am currently running, if the players follow the authored content they will reach a point where the "villains" of the story try to present their case to recruit the players. The villains have been their enemies for a while now and the most likely case is that the players will reflect their proposal and fight to restore the imperial family to the throne after the way concludes. However, should they choose to accept the proposal I will reauthor the major points of the campaign based on an alternate direction where they fight to overthrow the imperial family and the end state of the setting is entirely different as a result. They could also choose to join niether side and go to an adjacent country at which point I would reauthor the entire story going forward to present them with a list of challenges and an interesting narrative in the new country. It is most definitely authored but the players can diverge from the authored content at any point

Stonehead
2022-04-29, 09:43 AM
Like I said, in a sarcastic point; 'You start in [arbitrary location].' is already a loaded sentence. The very first sentence of almost any game already in the DM's favour;
I've never let my players choose where they start the game. Literally never. I strongly doubt any DM has, and if they have, I don't believe they do it regularly.


The DM creates the content. End.

DM: As you're walking through the Forest, you come across a band of Goblins.
Player: Wrong. I came across a bear.
DM: ...But there are Goblins here.
Player: This sounds like a railroad. I want to fight a Bear, not Goblins. Please respect my agency and remove the Goblins from the forest. I didn't choose for them to be there. I chose a Bear.

Has anyone claimed the players have agency over anything other than their character? Was this argument really about encounters or something? The players have control over their characters and the GM has control over everything else. When people say "player agency" they mean agency over their character. When people say the players have agency over the world, they mean their character's actions affect the world in a reasonably causal way. I've never seen anyone claim that the players have control over what monsters live in the cave, so that seems like a really weird point to make.

I can make bad examples too,
GM: Galahad steals gold from the beggar.
Player: But that's my character, he wouldn't do that.
GM: Yes he would, I'm the GM. Player agency doesn't exist. Everything is GM fiat.
Just as ridiculous from the other side.

Now, you might say that's not a fair example, because that wasn't your point, but the other side's point wasn't "Players should have agency over what random encounters they meet".

To emphasize; player agency means control over their characters, whose actions impact the world.

PhoenixPhyre
2022-04-29, 09:47 AM
Having followed this discussion I like the terms authored and emergent but I would like to propose a third term to be used in conjunction with those two.

Divergent: An authored game where player choices have the ability to change any part of the pre-written story.

When I dm I know at a super macro and macro level what the story is going to be. When the campaign starts. I know at the start of a session what the story is going to be at a micro level as well, but having the story pre written doesn't prevent player choices from changing it at any level. The players often diverge from the authored narrative at the micro level and given the right choices could easily derail the story at a macro and super macro level. At which point the rest of the session will be improv and the story is re-authored at a macro and super macro level in response.

90% of the time they follow along with the authored content but that doesn't prevent them from diverging from it at any level.

So I purpose authored, emergent and divergent.

As an example to divergent in the campaign I am currently running, if the players follow the authored content they will reach a point where the "villains" of the story try to present their case to recruit the players. The villains have been their enemies for a while now and the most likely case is that the players will reflect their proposal and fight to restore the imperial family to the throne after the way concludes. However, should they choose to accept the proposal I will reauthor the major points of the campaign based on an alternate direction where they fight to overthrow the imperial family and the end state of the setting is entirely different as a result. They could also choose to join niether side and go to an adjacent country at which point I would reauthor the entire story going forward to present them with a list of challenges and an interesting narrative in the new country. It is most definitely authored but the players can diverge from the authored content at any point

That's basically what I was getting at with my rambling. The story is authored (at some selection of levels), but that authorship can be thrown away and rebuilt at any point due to facts on the ground (ie the actions of the party and their consequences). So instead of being authored (ie set in stone), it's projected. There's a strong "if they follow the line I think they will", with allowance for limited variation within that while still staying "on the predicted path." Whether they slaughter every person in <group A> or merely cause them all to flee may matter in the short term (one to two session) but will only matter for the large scale under certain specific circumstances. But in those specific circumstances (which may be as frequent as you and the table desire), that difference in action can radically change the upcoming sessions out to asymptotic time.

KorvinStarmast
2022-04-29, 11:01 AM
To emphasize; player agency means control over their characters, whose actions impact the world. Have people been reading my sig? (The one from greenstone)

Easy e
2022-04-29, 11:12 AM
If the DM negates player agency to make sure they get to those things, it's railroading.
If the DM hides the negation of agency by presenting an illusionary choice, it's illusionism and railroading.
If the DM hides the negation of agency by presenting an illusionary choice between three different woods, but in reality specifically the first wood travelled to will have an Ogre encounter and the second will have the macguffin, it's a quantum ogre and illusionism and railroading.

That's what the terms railroading, illusionism and quantum ogre actually means.

So, the version of the game Icefractal laid out is objectively bad, because it is railroading, illusionism, and quantum ogre? Or am I misinterpreting your post?

This one:



#3: The GM has a definite plot in mind, with a beginning, certain milestones, and a pre-defined ending. However, the game is run in a very improv style, and between those fixed points almost anything can happen. The GM uses subtle railroading / quantum ogres to make all the infinite possible paths converge on those fixed points, but does almost no actual "authoring" of material - the entire campaign notes fit on a single page.



Maybe you should play a game without GM for a while to challenge your "core assumptions"


I do all the time, granted those are mostly board game and wargames. Hence why I limited my discussion to TT RPGs with GMs.

However, much of the same can be said of wargames with a GM as TT RPGs with a GM, but that is way off topic.

JNAProductions
2022-04-29, 11:20 AM
So, the version of the game Icefractal laid out is objectively bad, because it is railroading, illusionism, and quantum ogre? Or am I misinterpreting your post?

This one?
I'm not sure I'm getting the classification here. What would you call these?

#1: The game is a sandbox - a setting that players can travel to any part of, ally with or oppose almost any group, take on mercenary jobs or not, help people or not, seek out treasures or not. However, there's an agreement that at the end of a session, the players decide what they're going to do during the next session, and they stick to that. And that's because the GM will then prep the appropriate material between sessions.
So the players have a lot of freedom on a macro-level, but during a session most things that happen will be pre-written by the GM rather than improv.

#2: The GM is using a huge existing piece of material, like Ptolus or a mega-dungeon. Within that, the players can do whatever they want to, but they can't decide to leave the city entirely (well they can, but it means the end of the campaign).

#3: The GM has a definite plot in mind, with a beginning, certain milestones, and a pre-defined ending. However, the game is run in a very improv style, and between those fixed points almost anything can happen. The GM uses subtle railroading / quantum ogres to make all the infinite possible paths converge on those fixed points, but does almost no actual "authoring" of material - the entire campaign notes fit on a single page.

One is completely and totally fine-there may be a theoretical issue where the players finish content faster than expected and the DM doesn't have more material, but in that case, the session can just end a bit early, or turn into campsite RP.

Two is also totally fine, assuming the DM made clear with the pitch that the entire campaign takes place in the given setting.

Three is the one I would consider problematic. It won't by necessity be an unfun game, but unless the DM tells the players outright that they have a plot in mind and that the plot will be followed, it's an issue.

A good question to ask yourself on "Is this style of DMing okay?" would be "How would the players react if they found out what you're doing behind the scenes?"
For one, they already know what you're doing-the DM asks you at the end of a session what your plan is for the next one, and they prep it for next session. No lies, no problems.
For two, they already know that the DM is following the setting notes, whether it's premade or their own creation. They know that monsters, treasures, factions, all that is pre-set, and if they go somewhere, they'll encounter the same thing whether they go now or in four sessions. No lies, no problems.
For three, if the DM tells the players "I have a plot in mind, and we're gonna follow it. Here's the general gist of it... Sound fun?" then they know that the DM will lead them along the path that the plot follows. No lies, no problems.
For three, if the DM did NOT tell the players that it would be a linear game, but they make sure it stays linear by DM fiat, that's an issue. And the players would likely be upset if they found that out.

Easy e
2022-04-29, 11:25 AM
Wait a sec, so an exchange like this:

Dm:"Ok, thats the current stuff mostly wrapped up. What do you lot want to do next?"
Pcs:"We want to go find a person who can make a thing and get them to make some stuff for us."
Dm:"Hmm. Ok, there are people around like that. We'll wrap up here tonight and I'll randomly generate some people, leads, etc., for next time."

That's the DM being the only one shaping the game?

Yes, because the GM is the one that decides that they wanted the player input in the first place, and it then acting to meet the players wants. The GM does not have to do that at all, and the game runs fine.

The exchange could have easily been:

Gm: "Ok that is the current stuff wrapped up. Next time, you find yourself in X."
PCs: "Oh, how did we get there?"
Gm: "You travelled via boat, and then walked 4 days and it was uneventful and your feet are sore. We will take it from X next time as you explore X."

The GM in the case you describe decided NOT to do it that way. It was a GM choice on how they wanted to shape the game, with PC input.

BRC
2022-04-29, 11:27 AM
Yes, because the GM is the one that decides that they wanted the player input in the first place, and it then acting to meet the players wants. The GM does not have to do that at all, and the game runs fine.

The exchange could have easily been:

Gm: "Ok that is the current stuff wrapped up. Next time, you find yourself in X."
PCs: "Oh, how did we get there?"
Gm: "You travelled via boat, and then walked 4 days and it was uneventful and your feet are sore. We will take it from X next time as you explore X."

The GM in the case you describe decided NOT to do it that way. It was a GM choice on how they wanted to shape the game, with PC input.

Agency may be granted by the GM, but that doesn't make it Not Agency. If Player Input is genuinely driving the game, then the game is driven by player input, even if the GM isn't required to allow that to happen.

JNAProductions
2022-04-29, 11:27 AM
Yes, because the GM is the one that decides that they wanted the player input in the first place, and it then acting to meet the players wants. The GM does not have to do that at all, and the game runs fine.

The exchange could have easily been:

Gm: "Ok that is the current stuff wrapped up. Next time, you find yourself in X."
PCs: "Oh, how did we get there?"
Gm: "You travelled via boat, and then walked 4 days and it was uneventful and your feet are sore. We will take it from X next time as you explore X."

The GM in the case you describe decided NOT to do it that way. It was a GM choice on how they wanted to shape the game, with PC input.

Sure, but if I was playing a game where the DM decided what my PC did on anything even approaching a regular basis, they'd find themselves down a player in short order.

Tanarii
2022-04-29, 11:45 AM
So, the version of the game Icefractal laid out is objectively bad, because it is railroading, illusionism, and quantum ogre? Or am I misinterpreting your post?
No. I was just defining what was necessary for them to actually be railroading, illusionism, and quantum ogres.
They are terms that get mis-used a lot, usually far too broadly.

As to "objectively bad", no the "badness" is my opinion. They are negatively associated terms, that I personally think are bad as a Dm but also as a player, but that doesn't mean that every player inherently thinks that the thing happening in the definitions (as opposed to the terms themselves) are bad. And that's what really matters, not that the DM thinks they're okay, but that the players don't object. In the case of illusionism, object when they inevitably find out.

Also, just in case you're also unclear on what player agency is, because I didn't actually define it in my post you just quoted, this isn't a bad wording for it:

To emphasize; player agency means control over their characters, whose actions impact the world.Player agency is over making decisions for their characters. Not the content.


The GM in the case you describe decided NOT to do it that way. It was a GM choice on how they wanted to shape the game, with PC input.

Agency may be granted by the GM, but that doesn't make it Not Agency. If Player Input is genuinely driving the game, then the game is driven by player input, even if the GM isn't required to allow that to happen.
I think saying the default state is DM-deny-agency because any DM in many game systems might try to exercise the ability to deny agency is not correct.

IMX any DM that tries to deny agency regularly often/usually results in them not being a DM any longer. Therefore they have failed to deny agency, and also to DM. So it can't be the default. Either that or they become convention DMs.

Vahnavoi
2022-04-29, 12:08 PM
Having followed this discussion I like the terms authored and emergent but I would like to propose a third term to be used in conjunction with those two.

Divergent: An authored game where player choices have the ability to change any part of the pre-written story.

Divergence (and convergence) is undoubtedly a real quality - if you know what a game (or decision) tree is and know what branching is, even a partial map of a game's movespace will make the matter self-evident- but using it alongside authored and emergent doesn't add all that much information. The simple reason is that divergent (and convergent) branching can be either authored or emergent and a player of an imperfect information game has no reliable way to tell which is the case while playing a game. Only the game designer can reliably make that distinction.

Easy e
2022-04-29, 12:13 PM
So we all ultimately agree, that PC agency is controlled by GM Fiat,

Do we also agree that all GMs decide how much they exert their GM Fiat powers during a game?

KorvinStarmast
2022-04-29, 12:51 PM
So we all ultimately agree, that PC agency is controlled by GM Fiat,
I will cite 'the rule of so' and ask that you avoid attempting to speak for others, particularly when making such a broad, general statement. And since you framed it that way I will state that 'no, I do not agree with how you framed that.'

Do we also agree that all GMs decide how much they exert their GM Fiat powers during a game? I think I do, mostly.

Satinavian
2022-04-29, 01:13 PM
I do all the time, granted those are mostly board game and wargames. Hence why I limited my discussion to TT RPGs with GMs.

However, much of the same can be said of wargames with a GM as TT RPGs with a GM, but that is way off topic.
Should have been obvious this was about tabletop RPGs without GM.


To emphasize; player agency means control over their characters, whose actions impact the world.
That is the traditional and also most common way to to it. But it is not universal. There are e.g, many games out there where players get direct power over the gameworld, often coupled to metaressources. In those games that would also fall under player agency.


So we all ultimately agree, that PC agency is controlled by GM Fiat,

Do we also agree that all GMs decide how much they exert their GM Fiat powers during a game?
Nope.

The game only happens as long as everyone agrees who has what kind of power. So the GM controls player agency exactly as much as the players control GM agency Because if anyone tries to force their opinions about it through against the table, it only blows up in its face and the game is on halt.

Tanarii
2022-04-29, 01:25 PM
So we all ultimately agree, that PC agency is controlled by GM Fiat,

Do we also agree that all GMs decide how much they exert their GM Fiat powers during a game?
In many TTRPG games, a GM can try to fiat denial of player agency without breaking the defined rules of the game for the GM. The fact that not all games include defined rules for the GM, let alone suggestions, which can make avoiding breaking them in the process of trying a lot easier. :smallamused:

The GM can decide if they want to try that. They risk losing players an no longer being a DM in the process of trying. The players ultimately have a say on if they're going to accept it too. Their say is to walk from the table. That's the Player Fiat on the same level as this particular kind of DM Fiat.

Easy e
2022-04-29, 01:48 PM
Agency may be granted by the GM, but that doesn't make it Not Agency. If Player Input is genuinely driving the game, then the game is driven by player input, even if the GM isn't required to allow that to happen.

Player Input is the Illusionism!

After your "input" who creates the content and drives the story beats? I have played very Improv heavy games, where I work with the players to craft the plot, impacts, etc. Make no mistake though, as the GM using Rule 0, I get to say what we acted on and what got reeled back in; not the players.

To paraphrase The Matrix, "Would You Still Have Broken It If I Hadn't Said Anything?"

NichG
2022-04-29, 01:54 PM
I think the control of agency question is a red herring.

In terms of authored vs emergent, yes, it has something to do with agency, but it seems to more be an after-the-fact observation than stuff about intent-to-deny that comes up in railroading discussions. In which case the GM can be responsible for a game ending up authored or emergent, but so are the players.

So e.g. the GM runs two campaigns for two different groups of players who you know and tells you the stories of the campaigns without telling you who was in which. If you can tell who was in which group from the stories, that's emergence. A GM could prevent that intentionally. They could accidentally use premises where there really likely directions for groups of players to choose to go. The players in the groups might not want to do anything but roll dice and kill stuff, making them hard to distinguish. The players may be really good at erasing their own tastes or opinions, and as a result don't cause divergences that have anything in particular to do with them (I'd say 'it's what my character would do' can be a force tending towards player controlled but still ultimately Authored games...).

But it's all after the fact, so it doesn't matter what the GM could have done or what the rules permitted them to do. What matters is what was actually done and what marks were actually left on the course of events.

BRC
2022-04-29, 01:56 PM
Player Input is the Illusionism!

After your "input" who creates the content and drives the story beats? I have played very Improv heavy games, where I work with the players to craft the plot, impacts, etc. Make no mistake though, as the GM using Rule 0, I get to say what we acted on and what got reeled back in; not the players.

To paraphrase The Matrix, "Would You Still Have Broken It If I Hadn't Said Anything?"

It's not an Illusion though. Illusion implies deception. It implies that the agency is fake.


You're mistaking "Agency" for "Power". Players have no real Power in the game, because the GM's power is absolute due to Rule 0. In that, you are correct.

However, "Agency" is different from "Power". Agency is the ability of the players to drive the story. If you drive the story by suggesting things to the GM, who then acts on those suggestions, or by doing things in game, and the GM reacts to those actions, then you are, in fact, exercising Agency and driving the story. That is not an Illusion.

Vahnavoi
2022-04-29, 01:57 PM
Saying player inputs are illusionism is equivalent to saying that words appearing on the screen when I press keys is illusionism.

You can swap keyboard and computer for a human transcribing speech by ear. It doesn't matter. The inputs aren't illusions and neither is their effect on the system receiving said inputs.

Satinavian
2022-04-29, 01:58 PM
Make no mistake though, as the GM using Rule 0, I get to say what we acted on and what got reeled back in; not the players. Most systems don't have Rule 0.

Easy e
2022-04-29, 02:06 PM
Should have been obvious this was about tabletop RPGs without GM.




And it should of also been obvious I was talking about GM led TT RPGs as I went out of my way to limit the discussion to GMed TT RPGS in my initial premise.

You also mention meta-resources, and those are the most common way a games rules try to "control" or balance GM Fiat. However, I also point out that this is just an illusion to make players feel like GM Fiat does not run the game. Rules, Player Agency, RNG, etc are all ways to hide the fact that GM fiat is what ultimately controls a game, because the GM determines how and when the rules are factored in, setting, NPCs, encounters, etc. that no rule system can fully control and still be a GMed TT RPG.

Plus, the GM can always use Rule 0 and discard the rules as an extreme position and be within their per-view as a GM in a TT RPG.

kyoryu
2022-04-29, 02:09 PM
Refs in hockey games can put anyone in the box for just about any reason. In some cases, it's enough to change a game.

Usually, it doesn't.

Are you claiming that all hockey games are actually decided by the refs?

Easy e
2022-04-29, 02:14 PM
You're mistaking "Agency" for "Power". Players have no real Power in the game, because the GM's power is absolute due to Rule 0. In that, you are correct.


Yes, at least I have someone agree with me on the power all belonging to GMs in GM led TT RPGs! Success!

Also, in GM led TT RPGs, Rule 0 is the base line assumption. If you made a game that did not use Rule 0, you would not bother making a GM part of the game. You would have something else.

Thrudd
2022-04-29, 02:22 PM
Yes, the GM can choose/arrange the game content in such a way that the players have no real effect on what happens, even when the mechanical rules are mostly being followed.

The entire debate is about how and why a GM chooses the particular content they choose, not whether or not a GM is allowed to choose content.

Whether any position is "right" or "wrong" in this debate really depends on the relationship between any given GM and their players. If you wouldn't want your players to find out how you really run the game, then there's probably something "wrong" going on.

Easy e
2022-04-29, 02:31 PM
Refs in hockey games can put anyone in the box for just about any reason. In some cases, it's enough to change a game.

Usually, it doesn't.

Are you claiming that all hockey games are actually decided by the refs?

Ultimately, yes. They are the ones who tell you if you scored a goal or not. If they say you did not, you didn't. If they say you do, you do. Of course, the NHL (and others) uses many various approaches to reduce flaws and corruption of this system with oversight.

What oversight does a GM have? Only the players willingness to keep playing.

Therefore, the discussion should not be about Illuionism is bad, railroad is bad, sandbox is bad, etc. These are simply tools to be used for enjoyment and discarded when no longer bringing enjoyment. GM led TT RPGs have an inbuilt power imbalance and the GM controls the game, not rules, RNG, player choice, or other factors. The GM does, and ultimately the survival of a game is up to their decisions.

Telok
2022-04-29, 02:34 PM
So we all ultimately agree, that PC agency is controlled by GM Fiat,

Do we also agree that all GMs decide how much they exert their GM Fiat powers during a game?

Only in games where the GM is the rules. Some games present rules for the GM to follow, with such rules giving agency to players. At that point the GM violating those rules to deny player agency is no different from a player violating the rules governing PCs.

Now, D&D 5e is a game where the GM is the rules. All of its GM facing "rules" are at best rough guidelines. But a number of games do present actual GM rules and give players agency over aspects of the game. Some may be obfuscated, DtD40k7e stunting rules give players some scene editing ability and the GM is not given a blank check to overrule them (and the GM doesn't have an option to nope PC stunts). But they are still limits on the GM that can give players agency by the rule of the game.

OldTrees1
2022-04-29, 03:06 PM
So we all ultimately agree, that PC agency is controlled by GM Fiat,

Do we also agree that all GMs decide how much they exert their GM Fiat powers during a game?

Is it possible for a GM to grant players some limited agency?
Is it possible for a GM to avoid revoking agency they granted to the players?

As a GM, I do not see a meaningful practical difference between "I have granted agency that I won't revoke" vs "I have granted agency that I can't revoke.". Sure there is a technical difference, but the difference will not come up during the campaign I run.

Since I exert my GM Fiat powers to restrict my GM Fiat powers, for all practical purposes the Players do have the agency I granted.


An aside: Now in my case I prefer sandboxes with some events in motion (a cult working on waking an elder evil for example event). There are limits on the granted agency but the players have lots of agency within those bounds.


-snip-


@kyoryu this aside (see immediately above) might be an example of the continuum near the Emergent end but with some Authored elements. The PCs will eventually interact with the cult/elder evil of ice and snow even if it is just improving the insulation/heating on a tavern they decided to run.

The main gameplay loop is one of discovery, exploration, and expression. However I created a rock big enough that when it falls in the pond, the ripples will encounter the PCs. I don't know who tiny/large those ripples will be when they reach the PCs but I did author the ripples eventually reaching the PCs* by making the ripples cover the entire pond.

* Maybe the PCs proactively learn about, find, and stop the cult. (Large ripples). Maybe they are nearby and engage the elder evil when it emerges (Medium ripples). Maybe they decide their tavern will survive the freezing summers as long as they set up trade routes to the outside world and use some heating spells (Tiny ripples) but their main focus is the weekly singing competition they started.

Composer99
2022-04-29, 03:15 PM
I realise no one is obliged to accept the stated premise of a thread, but it is frankly exhausting and annoying to read through a thread only to have it become almost immediately derailed because the conversation inevitably shifts to whomever makes the most inflammatory statements that disagree with the stated premise.

Easy e
2022-04-29, 03:35 PM
I realise no one is obliged to accept the stated premise of a thread, but it is frankly exhausting and annoying to read through a thread only to have it become almost immediately derailed because the conversation inevitably shifts to whomever makes the most inflammatory statements that disagree with the stated premise.

Noted. I will bow out for a bit.

I am 100% sure that if we all played together at the local RPG table, we would all be fine and have fun; because ultimately; we are all here because we like to play TT RPGs.

Thanks for entertaining my rantings.

LecternOfJasper
2022-04-29, 03:43 PM
What oversight does a GM have? Only the players willingness to keep playing.

Therefore, the discussion should not be about Illuionism is bad, railroad is bad, sandbox is bad, etc. These are simply tools to be used for enjoyment and discarded when no longer bringing enjoyment. GM led TT RPGs have an inbuilt power imbalance and the GM controls the game, not rules, RNG, player choice, or other factors. The GM does, and ultimately the survival of a game is up to their decisions.

Sure, GM's in D&D technically have all the power in introducing content that the players interact with. They can, if they want to (for some reason), do all sorts of dumb stuff with or without taking into account the decisions of their players. The players can't really do anything about it except say "that's pretty ****ty" and leave, which seems like the predominant reaction to bad DMing around here.

That said, I can't imagine a player would WANT to play a game where they were promised some level of agency and the DM chooses to blatantly or surreptitiously disregard that (read: railroading, illusionism). Isn't the whole point of this trying to have fun with other people? I suppose I would, in a space of actually trying to run a game for people that want some degree of agency, immediately discard railroading and illusionism.

I have no idea why you're stressing this point so much. Just because DMs can have all the power to point a game in whatever direction they want, does not mean that they actually have all the power to keep the game going. There's a level of buy in necessary from your players that is - for most people's styles here - best achieved by giving them what they want instead of telling them one thing while secretly shuffling encounters do do what you want with.

As a totally voluntary experience (I hope), tabletop games should be predicated on a group of people getting together and trying to make an experience everyone enjoys. If I said "I would like to have some ability to change where the story goes" and the DM says "well, actually, I have all the power so any decision you make is ultimately up to me anyways," I'd think they're tripping and probably would find a way to leave.

So, like, totally valid point about the power structures built into some iterations of D&D, but not conducive to the discussion at hand, because I assumed the discussion at hand was about people trying to play a game with friends and the DM at least giving a passing **** about what the players want out of the game enough to deliver the experience asked for.

Can we get back to the whole "Authored vs. Emergent" thing? I for one found that the "Divergent" suggestion posted would fit most games I've liked or tried to run, and is probably my favored descriptor of these as it takes into account more than just the binary presented by the OP*. I note that that almost certainly would qualify as "Emergent" under the OP's definitions, which is fine. I don't really play a lot of games that run consistently off the seat of my pants, in that I like to prepare the playable world's span of content if I can (as much as is reasonable, at least), but I am fully willing to adjust various faction's plans for the world based on the player's antagonism.

*I also understand that the binary presented by the OP is kinda the whole point of the thread and making new terms for this phenomenon, but whatever.

Cheesegear
2022-04-29, 10:38 PM
So, like, totally valid point about the power structures built into some iterations of D&D, but not conducive to the discussion at hand, because I assumed the discussion at hand was about people trying to play a game with friends and the DM at least giving a passing **** about what the players want out of the game enough to deliver the experience asked for.

The problem is that people define things very, very generally, and when you get specific about those generalities, you end up in very dark and murky waters.

'I don't like when [X].'
Oh. I do [X] all the time, here's why, when and how.
'Oh, that's just DMing. That's fine.'
B- But...But you just you don't like it? But also sometimes it's fine?
'Shall we derail the thread about it?'
Let's go!

The internet is not a great place to have in-depth conversations about totally subjective things. 90% of the debate argument is definitional, and this entire thread, is about definitions, which makes it so much worse, and also so much more subjective, because in order to create new definitions, they have to be built on the foundations of the old definitions, which people also don't agree on.

JNAProductions
2022-04-29, 10:39 PM
The problem is that people define things very, very generally, and when you get specific about those generalities, you end up in very dark and murky waters.

'I don't like when [X].'
Oh. I do [X] all the time, here's why, when and how.
'Oh, that's just DMing. That's fine.'
B- But...But you just you don't like it? But also sometimes it's fine?
'Shall we derail the thread about it?'
Let's go!

The internet is not a great place to have in-depth conversations about totally subjective things. 90% of the debate argument is definitional, and this entire thread, is about definitions, which makes it so much worse, and also so much more subjective, because in order to create new definitions, they have to be built on the foundations of the old definitions, which people also don't agree on.

It would help your example if you actually used specific examples.

Vahnavoi
2022-04-30, 12:36 AM
What oversight does a GM have? Only the players willingness to keep playing.

You have never thought of this too deeply, have you?

I've noted elsewhere that a game master's ability to pitch any game they want, and the ability of players to refuse, is equivalent to classic Ultimatum game. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/neuroscience/ultimatum-game) Based on which we can reasonably predict that games which sound blatantly unfair will be rejected by most players. Additionally, we also know that people naturally carry metagame information from game to game and that people have natural tendency to weigh negative experiences more than positive ones. (https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/negativity-bias) In practice, these two put together mean that a game master has to be fair towards their players vast majority of the time if they want to keep being a game master - because perceived bad acting can make players refuse to play in perpetuity. This puts limits to what kind of a game the game master can pitch.

Game theoretically, this situation is similar to iterated Prisoner's dilemma. (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma) If you are in an open-ended situation where you don't know how many games you are going to play with the same people, doing whatever the Hell you want is no longer a dominant strategy you should always go for. Instead, another strategy rears its head: tit-for-tat. In plain terms, this means that fresh players will begin from assumption of trust and then continue to trust a game master if the game master continues to be trustworthy. Violations of trust will be met with withdrawal of trust and refusal to play. On the game master's side, following the same strategy entails beginning with a game that gives players their fair share and sense of agency, and then continuing to hold games according to that principle. If players start to go outside the bounds of agency, the game master should withdraw trust and stop playing with those players.


That's the abstract. On a more practical level: laws of the land, rules of the event venue and social relationships between players don't cease to exist when you put your game master's hat. You can be held accountable for the games you run not just by your players, but also by all the people your players tell of your games, the people who give you the place to run your games, the law enforcement of your country, etc.. It's ironic that you can get there are people who hate GM-lead games because of their bad experiences, but don't actually seem to understand that your own clueless characterization of what a game master can do and why actively contributes to that problem.

Cluedrew
2022-04-30, 11:06 AM
No, when I refer to "authored" I don't mean the world - I mean the path that hte players take.OK, well assuming a hard line between the two*, so let's focus in on just the path.

Linear Path: All events are arranged in a single fixed sequence.
Sandbox Path: All events are available to experience in any order.

At these extremes I'm not sure either formula sounds pretty fun, with a lack of choices in the linear path and a lack of consequences in the sandbox. Maybe that gets fixed at the scene and sub-scene level while the inter-scene graph remains unchanged. Or maybe people decide to mix it up a bit.

New Linear Path: All events are arranged in order, but there are chains of alternate events that travel in sequence before rejoining.
New Sandbox Path: Events are arranged in many short linear chains, the chains are available in any order.

And then I can start coming up with more ways to hybridize these structures. (And that isn't even including a tree path, which is kind of like the linear path except it breaks off part way through.) I can make the chains in the sandbox longer, introduce side chains on the linear adventure that can be skipped or done later, or even have one primary chain of events in the sandbox with a bunch of little side chains off to the side that actually have most of the content in the game.

So in a giant flow chart a choice and a progression are fundamentally different structures, but over the entire campaign saying all games boil down to one of those two seems overly simplified.

* A bold assumption, but I think it is good enough for what I want to say here.

Cheesegear
2022-04-30, 04:16 PM
I've read a few of these threads in an as many weeks, and I've come across a central theme:

The DM should engage with - but not necessarily reward - player creativity.

How much, should a DM engage with player creativity?

...How long is a piece of string?

JNAProductions
2022-04-30, 04:18 PM
I've read a few of these threads in an as many weeks, and I've come across a central theme:

The DM should engage with - but not necessarily reward - player creativity.

How much, should a DM engage with player creativity?

...How long is a piece of string?

How much is fun for the table?
You want to engage with players that interact with the setting or whatever the focus is, but at the same time, you shouldn't focus on one player to the exclusion of others. Everyone should have fun at the table.

So, got any specific examples to back up your generalities?

NichG
2022-04-30, 04:24 PM
I've read a few of these threads in an as many weeks, and I've come across a central theme:

The DM should engage with - but not necessarily reward - player creativity.

How much, should a DM engage with player creativity?

...How long is a piece of string?

That's not really where the thread started though, that's just a forum argument that tends to drift into anything vaguely related and grabs focus.

This isn't inherently a moral argument, it's a question of how to think about a space of experiences and styles and preferences, and a question of whether that tends to break down on certain lines better than others.

So it's not 'how much should a DM engage with player creativity?', it's 'does the effect of integrating player decisions in a way that they have predetermined potential impact lead to a qualitatively different feel than if player decisions are integrated in a way where their cumulative impact can be unbounded?'

Cheesegear
2022-04-30, 04:26 PM
So, got any specific examples to back up your generalities?

Railroads are bad 'cause players want to do stuff.
Backstories are good 'cause players want to do stuff.
Emergent gameplay good 'cause players want to do stuff.

But how much 'doing of stuff' should a DM allow?
Remember how long that piece of string is? About that much.

JNAProductions
2022-04-30, 04:31 PM
Railroads are bad 'cause players want to do stuff.
Backstories are good 'cause players want to do stuff.
Emergent gameplay good 'cause players want to do stuff.

But how much 'doing of stuff' should a DM allow?
Remember how long that piece of string is? About that much.

Railroads are bad because they involve deceiving players or forcing them outright into doing things they'd rather not.
Backstories can be good because they can show the DM what the player is interested in, have ready-to-go hooks that the character will bite, and can help develop personality for the player character.
Emergent gameplay, as-in not having a preset path for the party to follow, is good for players who like that style, and bad for players who don't.

Cheesegear
2022-04-30, 04:39 PM
So it's not 'how much should a DM engage with player creativity?', it's
'does the effect of integrating player decisions in a way that they have predetermined potential impact lead to a qualitatively different feel than if player decisions are integrated in a way where their cumulative impact can be unbounded?'

I feel like you just said the first thing - my thing - with more words.


Railroads are bad because they involve deceiving players or forcing them outright into doing things they'd rather not.

Players want to do stuff.


Backstories can be good because they can show the DM what the player is interested in, have ready-to-go hooks that the character will bite, and can help develop personality for the player character.

Players want to do stuff.


Emergent gameplay, as-in not having a preset path for the party to follow, is good for players who like that style, and bad for players who don't.

...But then you went for a weaksauce 'it depends', and now we're back to the piece of string where nobody is going to agree on how long that string should be. While we're at it, did anyone even decide on what colour the string is, yet?

JNAProductions
2022-04-30, 04:48 PM
I feel like you just said the first thing - my thing - with more words.

Players want to do stuff.

Players want to do stuff.

...But then you went for a weaksauce 'it depends', and now we're back to the piece of string where nobody is going to agree on how long that string should be. While we're at it, did anyone even decide on what colour the string is, yet?

So, I have two players. We'll call them Jack and Jill.

Jack is new to TTRPGs. He loves movies, though, and was sold on trying a session of D&D because he gets to be an action hero. Jack isn't very good at taking the initiative, partly because he's new, and partly because that's just who he is.
I, as the DM, learn this by talking to him. So I think of a plot, various events and encounters to flesh it out, and give Jack the pitch. We'll say the plot's about an invading demonic army.
I tell Jack "My general idea is for the party, including you, to be working against an invading army of demons. It won't be super complicated, but I've got a lot of stuff planned that should be fun, and let you feel like an action hero. Sound good?"
Jack agrees.

Jill is a veteran TTRPG player. She loves making deep, complex characters, who get strongly affected by the world around them, and in turn affect the world. She's great at taking the initiative, and has DMed too.
I, as the DM, learn this by talking to her. So, because she's a veteran player, I get a lot of her input on the setting creation. I don't necessarily agree with everything she says, but we work out something that will be fun for me to run and her to play in-she knows the broad strokes of the world, but not the little secrets I hide away in it.
When we start, she begins play in Citytropolis, where there's a lot of tension about ready to boil over. Her character, being a peacemaker, tries to calm the city down-does she succeed, or fail? That's up to her ideas and her luck with the dice. Depending on how well she does, we carry on from there, with her PC guiding the action-not simply going through a plot I made.

Jack wouldn't be good with emergent gameplay. He's the kind of player who likes a more guided experience. Maybe he'll learn to take the initiative as he plays more, maybe not-either way, he's having fun, and that's important.
Jill wouldn't be good WITHOUT emergent gameplay. She's the kind of player who, if offered a game that was just a straight run through a module, would turn that game down, because that's not what she's interested in.

In other words, people are different. Different strokes, different folks, and all that.

NichG
2022-04-30, 05:53 PM
I feel like you just said the first thing - my thing - with more words.


I removed the 'should'. What I said has nothing at will with what is good or bad, what one ought to do, whether to approve of someone doing something, etc.

Tanarii
2022-04-30, 06:00 PM
Have you managed to reconcile "player wanting to make decisions for the content" =/= player agency yet? If not, there's no further point in discussing what railroading is until you understand what player agency actually is.

Thrudd
2022-04-30, 08:25 PM
Talking about authored, emergent, linear, sandbox gameplay, etc., is essentially a discussion about what sorts of considerations GMs might have regarding their choice of content. Especially in D&D, the DM is only given loose guidelines and suggestions about how to do this - that's why there are so many discussions about how different people do it. Everyone agrees that the DM can do almost anything they want for any or no reason...we're talking about what we think they should do, the how and the why of content selection and presentation.

It is believed by many of us that if the players are made aware of the GM's rationale and method of content selection, they will better understand their role in the game, what is expected of them and in what ways they can meaningfully interact with the content (aka, how much/what type of agency they have). I think it's safe to say that for most of us, knowing how a game actually works makes the game more fun.

Example Game pitch 1 - I have designed a story that will be revealed through a series of scenarios and set-piece encounters, about a great threat that needs to be stopped. Each of your characters will have a reason to be involved in the story connected with some element of the short character description I asked you to provide. In each scene, you will find out the next location you need to reach. There will also be extra clues and secrets that you may or may not find in each scene, the more clues and secrets you find, you will have more advantages later. Characters can be resurrected if they die between set-pieces, but if you perform well enough in most of the encounters and uncover enough of the secrets, you might even defeat the big boss and save the world at the end!

-I think everyone agrees this is a fully linear/authored game. The players here will know they have no control over whether or not to pursue the adventure, where or when the fights will take place. They know they will be choosing their combat tactics, their performance in encounters will have bearing on the later encounters, and they will be able to interact and explore within the bounds of each scenario to find optional clues and secrets. They know they won't lose their characters before the end, but could lose the final battle. While it isn't everyone's cup of tea, I feel like this is a completely acceptable way to run a game. It has a definite end-point, and if the story and set-pieces are well designed, it could be plenty of fun. Having told the players how it works, way more fun and less stress for the DM, imo, not needing to worry about hiding the "rails" or fighting to keep the players "on track".

OldTrees1
2022-04-30, 10:43 PM
While it isn't everyone's cup of tea, I feel like this is a completely acceptable way to run a game. It has a definite end-point, and if the story and set-pieces are well designed, it could be plenty of fun. Having told the players how it works, way more fun and less stress for the DM, imo, not needing to worry about hiding the "rails" or fighting to keep the players "on track".

Yes, that is not my cup of tea, but some players would enjoy that completely acceptable way to run the game.

Vahnavoi
2022-05-01, 01:18 AM
It's actually very general game structure, for example a classic scout contest track follows the same rules: each activity point is marked on a map, the points have to be reached in order, side tasks are hidden along the routes between points. However, in reality this structure allows for great deal of emergence, because contestants have to use their own pathfinding skills to go from point to point. Similarly progress within activity points varies immensely based on player skill. Players are very much agents of their own progress and success, so this game structure really doesn't entail the kind of game master chokehold that people think of when they complain about (or defend) railroading.

For a similar reason, I sometimes say that genuine railshooters are less railroaded than tabletop game with a game master enforcing a script. In the shooter, you can actually lose, almost at any point. You have to keep your eyes on the game, actually aim and shoot the targets, to progress. The authored structure of the game puts constraints on your actions, but you unquestionably have to act and your decisions of how to act have tangible effect on the game.

The point, to some discussers here, would be this: don't confuse questions of player agency for questions of if a game is authored or emergent. Even if the dichtomy between authored and emergent games holds on some level, player agency is not dichtomous along the same line.

Cheesegear
2022-05-01, 05:53 AM
It's actually very general game structure, for example a classic scout contest track follows the same rules: each activity point is marked on a map

The thing that still gets me, is that there is a very, very big difference between a map with fog of war, and a map with all locations on it.

In Fallout 1, for example, the map is entirely black. Locations show up as people tell you to go to them, and there is a fairly obvious trail you are supposed to follow. Given that the entirety of the map is black, and the only things you can see, are the locations you're 'supposed to' go to, that's where you go. Now, if you've played Fallout at least once, the game is not as linear as it first appears. You can make a beeline into the black parts of the map if you know where you're going. But, no player is really organically going to do that - not on their first playthrough. Sure, maybe some did. But not a lot.
1 & 2 effectively say 'You can go anywhere you want. There's nothing stopping you, from going into the black... You wont go, though.'

Similarly, in most TTRPGs, you only get to play an adventure once. They may be other solutions, but you're never going to know that, because it's not like the DM is ever going to go backwards and redo scenarios they've already done. You get one shot to go where you want to go.

In 3 and New Vegas, overland travel is very different. As an FPS, the game has a skybox and draw distance. The player can see certain landmarks, and can say 'I want to go to there.', and then...Go. But they are given those prompts; 'Look at this in the distance.' and a thing is shown to you. And something in your brain changes when you have a destination to go to. You make a choice to go somewhere you've already seen. A big part of the decision tree (e.g; Uncertainty of the unknown) is removed.

This is why I am so against maps. It's not so much that my players are limited in what they can do. They can go anywhere they want. It's an RPG. Do anything you want. You can go off 'into the black' immediately if you want...The whole map is black.

Maps limit the DM. The players can have their emergent gameplay when they reach a destination, sure. But this is why I'm such a strong advocate of the Quantum Ogre; If I don't fix things into the world, I can change it as long as the players haven't seen it, yet. I - the DM - get to have my emergent...World building. I can have authored world building...But what if I want to change it when the players do something...Weird. What happens when the players inspire me (shock), and I decide that the idea I had was actually dumb and I want to change it...But I actually wrote the location down on the map and I've already told the players what's there. And now when the players get there I have to play out the idea that I now think is stupid, because that's what I told them, is there.

There is a difference between a known sandbox, and an unknown sandbox. Not just for the players, but for the DM, too.

Vahnavoi
2022-05-01, 08:05 AM
You're talking of perfect information versus imperfect information games. Preferring imperfect information games is a very feeble reason to be against maps, because it's trivial to hide parts of the map. Opposing maps on the basis that your own maps limit you... oh please. Avoiding putting down what you've already decided on the basis that you might change your mind, is a good way to end up in a situation where you don't even remember what you did decide and are left with less to work with.


Similarly, in most TTRPGs, you only get to play an adventure once. They may be other solutions, but you're never going to know that, because it's not like the DM is ever going to go backwards and redo scenarios they've already done. You get one shot to go where you want to go.

Sure, a lot of game masters never run replays. They are doing a disservice to both themselves and their players, because this practice prevents them from noticing various qualities their games actually have, especially emergent ones.

You can play a hundred games of Chess, or a hundred games of Go, all starting from the same position, and that doesn't exhaust those games. Not even close. It really isn't hard to design a roleplaying scenario where, even if always starting from the same situation with the same set of characters, the same holds true. And I'll remind you that Chess and Go are perfect information games where you know positions and legal moves of every game piece.

Cheesegear
2022-05-01, 09:13 AM
Opposing maps on the basis that your own maps limit you... oh please. Avoiding putting down what you've already decided on the basis that you might change your mind, is a good way to end up in a situation where you don't even remember what you did decide and are left with less to work with.

Not really what I meant.

I've seen several times that when DMs homebrew, they show up with a map, several locations drawn, full backstories and histories written up, names of NPCs, random encounters that can happen in certain locations and the whole thing is...Filled. Very little can change on a pre-filled map, and even less can change once you've shown that map and explained everything to your players. If the players say that they want to go somewhere, you kind of have to let them go there, unless you're going to do some bull*...I'll come back to that.

I, on the other hand, start my games with a blank sheet of paper, that gets filled in as I go along, as the players ask - I've mentioned this process. Once something is placed, it's done. I can't undo that. But until such time as my players ask about it, until such time as my players go there, I don't have to put anything at all in an empty hex. I may want to Quantum Ogre them into a situation I've thought up...Actually they had a rough combat just now...Maybe not this session. Even if they go there, they'll find the hex blank, the hex will be marked blank, and I can save the Quantum Ogre for later, because I haven't told the players about the Quantum Ogre yet, so it can still be anywhere I want it to be, when I need it...But I don't want the lake scenario right now, so the lake isn't there, and it will be in another hex, in another session.

A map absolutely does limit what you can do. In a sense, it's a railroad that you tell your players about; 'If you go here, you will find this. There's a more or less unspoken rule that if I tell you something is true, then it's true. If I straight up lie to you and say something is there, when it isn't, or the thing that is there, isn't what I said it is; There must be both a narrative and mechanical reason for why that change has been made - even if you don't necessarily get to find out what those reasons were.'

Which ties back to Easy e's point; If you don't tell the players what's there in advance, the DM can put anything they want, there. Hence a DM gets freedom to do what they want, by not giving players information. By not giving the players information, the DM gets to have their own emergent gameplay - not the players - or, the DM can Quantum Ogre the players into authored content. That's up to the DM - because of course it is.

Thrudd
2022-05-01, 09:30 AM
The thing that still gets me, is that there is a very, very big difference between a map with fog of war, and a map with all locations on it.

In Fallout 1, for example, the map is entirely black. Locations show up as people tell you to go to them, and there is a fairly obvious trail you are supposed to follow. Given that the entirety of the map is black, and the only things you can see, are the locations you're 'supposed to' go to, that's where you go. Now, if you've played Fallout at least once, the game is not as linear as it first appears. You can make a beeline into the black parts of the map if you know where you're going. But, no player is really organically going to do that - not on their first playthrough. Sure, maybe some did. But not a lot.
1 & 2 effectively say 'You can go anywhere you want. There's nothing stopping you, from going into the black... You wont go, though.'

Similarly, in most TTRPGs, you only get to play an adventure once. They may be other solutions, but you're never going to know that, because it's not like the DM is ever going to go backwards and redo scenarios they've already done. You get one shot to go where you want to go.

In 3 and New Vegas, overland travel is very different. As an FPS, the game has a skybox and draw distance. The player can see certain landmarks, and can say 'I want to go to there.', and then...Go. But they are given those prompts; 'Look at this in the distance.' and a thing is shown to you. And something in your brain changes when you have a destination to go to. You make a choice to go somewhere you've already seen. A big part of the decision tree (e.g; Uncertainty of the unknown) is removed.

This is why I am so against maps. It's not so much that my players are limited in what they can do. They can go anywhere they want. It's an RPG. Do anything you want. You can go off 'into the black' immediately if you want...The whole map is black.

Maps limit the DM. The players can have their emergent gameplay when they reach a destination, sure. But this is why I'm such a strong advocate of the Quantum Ogre; If I don't fix things into the world, I can change it as long as the players haven't seen it, yet. I - the DM - get to have my emergent...World building. I can have authored world building...But what if I want to change it when the players do something...Weird. What happens when the players inspire me (shock), and I decide that the idea I had was actually dumb and I want to change it...But I actually wrote the location down on the map and I've already told the players what's there. And now when the players get there I have to play out the idea that I now think is stupid, because that's what I told them, is there.

There is a difference between a known sandbox, and an unknown sandbox. Not just for the players, but for the DM, too.
I mean, you can draw the map and change it later, so long as you didn't show the players the full map. But yes, it's perfectly common, I think, to not draw the entire world all at once and not fill in too many details right away. If you don't want them to know something yet, you don't tell them about it...of course. That is not "quantum ogre" as most people mean it. Quantum Ogre means there is a particular encounter you've designed and no matter where they go or what they try to do, the thing you planned happens to be there. If you come up with the encounter in the moment, it makes sense according to where they are or what they're doing, then it wasn't a "quantum ogre". It may seem like a small distinction, but I think it's important. It's the intent behind the content you choose and the agreed upon parameters for the game overall, not just the fact that you choose the content, that determines if it's a "robbing player agency" situation. If the players did not expect to have that agency, then you didn't take it away from them - they never had it. So it isn't a "bad". If the players think what they do makes a difference but it really doesn't (because you let them believe that), that's the "bad". If you tell them they get to explore anywhere they want and choose any quest they want, but no matter what they say they want to do, you drop your own pre-planned world-ender plot on them anyways - that's the "railroad".
If you tell them there will be a broadly defined mission they need to pursue, but they can approach it however they want...it isn't taking away agency so long as you actually allow them to approach it however they want. They know ahead of time what the limits of the game will be. Not "bad".

I don't think it's very common for players to have complete and universal knowledge of the game world, unless you're playing a game set in the real, contemporary world, or using a published setting that everyone is extremely familiar with. I'm not sure if anyone does a "known" sandbox for the players - that seems very odd to me - usually one of the gameplay goals of a sandbox is exploration and discovery. People talking about running sandboxes are not talking about handing the players a completely filled-in map with a bunch of locations and never improvising or changing anything. To the players, almost everything is usually "dark", and they are responsible for creating their own map to keep track of what they have explored. Whether the DM details everything in advance or improvises it on the spot is opaque to the players - it's all in the presentation and implementation of your creation, not the timing of it. If you can make it seem like everything fits coherently when you present it to the players, you could even get away with rolling on tables to generate exploration content.

I agree, it is fun for me, as a DM, to discover what will happen, which is why I like to use a lot of RNG to decide what happens, and improvise a lot, as well. I just have an idea of what sorts of things might exist in different parts of my world, I like to have a map of the terrain and locations of some settlements and important places, and a few level appropriate dungeons mapped and stocked that the players can learn about. So, the players can potentially see a map of sections of the "overworld" with general terrain and known settlements, and maybe the location of one specific target, if they procure one somewhere in-character. It won't show them where monster lairs might be, where hidden or lost locations are, there's always wandering monsters/random encounters that no one can predict. The random encounters can prompt the creation of a whole new "plot line" or a major location to explore. I don't think any of that can be described as "quantum ogre" or "railroad", and if a player accused me of that, I'd happily explain how I'm doing things to assuage their concerns.

Tanarii
2022-05-01, 12:02 PM
A map absolutely does limit what you can do. In a sense, it's a railroad that you tell your players about; 'If you go here, you will find this. That is not a railroad. The players have agency to to decide where their PCs go, and can even research information in advance or scout it, because the GM knows what is there in advance before the decision is even made. The GM doesn't negate player agency in any way, so very clearly not a railroad.

Railoading is about a DM negating player agency, and player agency is about players decision making for what their PCs will attempt to do.

Satinavian
2022-05-01, 12:50 PM
Maps limit the DM. The players can have their emergent gameplay when they reach a destination, sure. But this is why I'm such a strong advocate of the Quantum Ogre; If I don't fix things into the world, I can change it as long as the players haven't seen it, yet. I - the DM - get to have my emergent...World building. I can have authored world building...But what if I want to change it when the players do something...Weird. What happens when the players inspire me (shock), and I decide that the idea I had was actually dumb and I want to change it...But I actually wrote the location down on the map and I've already told the players what's there. And now when the players get there I have to play out the idea that I now think is stupid, because that's what I told them, is there.

There is a difference between a known sandbox, and an unknown sandbox. Not just for the players, but for the DM, too.
That might be true. Not revealing stuff allows you to make it up whenever you want.

However that does limit your players. Because they simply have far less of your gameworld to interact with, literally limiting what they can do. Furthermore, the world does look more bland and uninteresting because most of it just doesn't exist yet. Last but not least, not really knowing the gameworld means the players can't really make PCs grounded an engaged in that world leading to more bland PCs.

So there is a tradeoff. And many people don't think the GMs ability to wing it whenever is worth the cost. That is one reason why official settings are so common in use.


I'm not sure if anyone does a "known" sandbox for the players - that seems very odd to me - usually one of the gameplay goals of a sandbox is exploration and discovery. People talking about running sandboxes are not talking about handing the players a completely filled-in map with a bunch of locations and never improvising or changing anything. To the players, almost everything is usually "dark", and they are responsible for creating their own map to keep track of what they have explored. Whether the DM details everything in advance or improvises it on the spot is opaque to the players - it's all in the presentation and implementation of your creation, not the timing of it. While the exploration hexcrawl has a really long tradition, "known" sandboxes do exist and are even quite common. It is kinda the more typical form for games based on politics and power struggles, for example if the group represents a patrician house in a big city or a warlord and compüanions during some nasty multi-faction civil war.
To be a competent actr in the field of politics and power you need to know the other faction and their relations, the geography, the general situation etc. Sure, there are alsay secrets or incomplet/wrong information, but that is always the minority.

NichG
2022-05-01, 01:54 PM
Authored vs emergent isn't the same as the question of agency. For one thing, agency requires informed decisions - it's when consequences align with intent. You could have emergence in a zero-information game where every decision is made completely blind.

Quertus
2022-05-01, 02:11 PM
I had a DM basically let each player define the entire universe their character came from and how that universe ended...

Sounds interesting. Got a link to the story on this one?


Having followed this discussion I like the terms authored and emergent but I would like to propose a third term to be used in conjunction with those two.

Divergent: An authored game where player choices have the ability to change any part of the pre-written story.

When I dm I know at a super macro and macro level what the story is going to be. When the campaign starts. I know at the start of a session what the story is going to be at a micro level as well, but having the story pre written doesn't prevent player choices from changing it at any level. The players often diverge from the authored narrative at the micro level and given the right choices could easily derail the story at a macro and super macro level. At which point the rest of the session will be improv and the story is re-authored at a macro and super macro level in response.

90% of the time they follow along with the authored content but that doesn't prevent them from diverging from it at any level.

So I purpose authored, emergent and divergent.

As an example to divergent in the campaign I am currently running, if the players follow the authored content they will reach a point where the "villains" of the story try to present their case to recruit the players. The villains have been their enemies for a while now and the most likely case is that the players will reflect their proposal and fight to restore the imperial family to the throne after the way concludes. However, should they choose to accept the proposal I will reauthor the major points of the campaign based on an alternate direction where they fight to overthrow the imperial family and the end state of the setting is entirely different as a result. They could also choose to join niether side and go to an adjacent country at which point I would reauthor the entire story going forward to present them with a list of challenges and an interesting narrative in the new country. It is most definitely authored but the players can diverge from the authored content at any point


That's basically what I was getting at with my rambling. The story is authored (at some selection of levels), but that authorship can be thrown away and rebuilt at any point due to facts on the ground (ie the actions of the party and their consequences). So instead of being authored (ie set in stone), it's projected. There's a strong "if they follow the line I think they will", with allowance for limited variation within that while still staying "on the predicted path." Whether they slaughter every person in <group A> or merely cause them all to flee may matter in the short term (one to two session) but will only matter for the large scale under certain specific circumstances. But in those specific circumstances (which may be as frequent as you and the table desire), that difference in action can radically change the upcoming sessions out to asymptotic time.


Divergence (and convergence) is undoubtedly a real quality - if you know what a game (or decision) tree is and know what branching is, even a partial map of a game's movespace will make the matter self-evident- but using it alongside authored and emergent doesn't add all that much information. The simple reason is that divergent (and convergent) branching can be either authored or emergent and a player of an imperfect information game has no reliable way to tell which is the case while playing a game. Only the game designer can reliably make that distinction.

Shrug. "Divergent" is... the way I prefer to play, where I know what would happen if the PCs didn't interfere (and what happened when 1 or more sample parties did get involved) in the timeline. I'm not sure if it has anything to do with "Authored" vs "Emergent", but... in "Divergent", my hope is that the PCs will change things; I've seen many Railroad GMs desperately attempt to force the plot to Converge back into the story that they want to tell.

I think "Divergent" is just another sub-type of "Emergent", at least the way I run it.


OK, well assuming a hard line between the two*, so let's focus in on just the path.

Linear Path: All events are arranged in a single fixed sequence.
Sandbox Path: All events are available to experience in any order.

At these extremes I'm not sure either formula sounds pretty fun, with a lack of choices in the linear path and a lack of consequences in the sandbox. Maybe that gets fixed at the scene and sub-scene level while the inter-scene graph remains unchanged. Or maybe people decide to mix it up a bit.

New Linear Path: All events are arranged in order, but there are chains of alternate events that travel in sequence before rejoining.
New Sandbox Path: Events are arranged in many short linear chains, the chains are available in any order.

And then I can start coming up with more ways to hybridize these structures. (And that isn't even including a tree path, which is kind of like the linear path except it breaks off part way through.) I can make the chains in the sandbox longer, introduce side chains on the linear adventure that can be skipped or done later, or even have one primary chain of events in the sandbox with a bunch of little side chains off to the side that actually have most of the content in the game.

So in a giant flow chart a choice and a progression are fundamentally different structures, but over the entire campaign saying all games boil down to one of those two seems overly simplified.

* A bold assumption, but I think it is good enough for what I want to say here.

This seems like just another variable, about how much one's actions affect future scenes, rather than the pathing of said scenes. Although very important to my enjoyment of the game, I'm not sure that they impact whether a game is Emergent vs Authored - I think they're independent variables.

Vahnavoi
2022-05-01, 02:39 PM
I've seen several times that when DMs homebrew, they show up with a map, several locations drawn, full backstories and histories written up, names of NPCs, random encounters that can happen in certain locations and the whole thing is...Filled. Very little can change on a pre-filled map, and even less can change once you've shown that map and explained everything to your players. If the players say that they want to go somewhere, you kind of have to let them go there, unless you're going to do some bull*...I'll come back to that.

And? The point of all that prep work, when done is properly, is to reduce cognitive workload during actual play. The game master doesn't actually lose ability to change any unrevealed detail. A game master is not meaningfully limited by records of their own past decisions.

As for players being able to go somewhere they see in on a map... this is called "giving players information" and them being able to act on that information is the desired quality and reason why a game master would give them a map in the first place. -_-


I, on the other hand, start my games with a blank sheet of paper, that gets filled in as I go along, as the players ask - I've mentioned this process. Once something is placed, it's done. I can't undo that. But until such time as my players ask about it, until such time as my players go there, I don't have to put anything at all in an empty hex. I may want to Quantum Ogre them into a situation I've thought up...Actually they had a rough combat just now...Maybe not this session. Even if they go there, they'll find the hex blank, the hex will be marked blank, and I can save the Quantum Ogre for later, because I haven't told the players about the Quantum Ogre yet, so it can still be anywhere I want it to be, when I need it...But I don't want the lake scenario right now, so the lake isn't there, and it will be in another hex, in another session.

I have nothing against imperfect information games where the map is generated as players progress, I play games with such rules all the time. However, the way you tie this very common map mechanic to "quantum ogre" and treat that as a positive shows you didn't understand the original article establishing the term. Not that the original article was much good and "quantum ogre" is bad term that everyone would be better off abandoning.

But hey, since you insist on using that term: what "quantum ogre" means is that a game master is using imperfect information as cover to hide the fact that player choices are false. An event is unavoidable just because a game master desired so.

Meanwhile, game masters who actually understand how maps work, fill their maps with things they want to happen, set up so that the map itself implies acceptable sequences of events. Again, a game master is not meaningfully limited by records of their own past decisions


A map absolutely does limit what you can do. In a sense, it's a railroad that you tell your players about; 'If you go here, you will find this. There's a more or less unspoken rule that if I tell you something is true, then it's true. If I straight up lie to you and say something is there, when it isn't, or the thing that is there, isn't what I said it is; There must be both a narrative and mechanical reason for why that change has been made - even if you don't necessarily get to find out what those reasons were.'

And now you show you don't understand what a "railroad" means. A railroad forces a specific path and specific outcome. Maps do not inherently do either. They have to be designed to railroad, to be railroads. Most maps achieve the exact opposite: by giving players more information, they allow players to plan more steps ahead and choose a route that fits their own objectives, rather than simply following path of least resistance based on immediate situation.

As for unreliable maps, those are trivial to implement. A game can just have a spoken rule that in-game maps are not perfectly trustworthy.


Which ties back to Easy e's point; If you don't tell the players what's there in advance, the DM can put anything they want, there. Hence a DM gets freedom to do what they want, by not giving players information. By not giving the players information, the DM gets to have their own emergent gameplay - not the players - or, the DM can Quantum Ogre the players into authored content. That's up to the DM - because of course it is.

Giving players more information does not actually prevent emergence - on either side of table. What usually changes is type of emergent gameplay. So the game design choice between giving players more versus less information is never straightforwardly "more information for players = more limits & less emergent gameplay for game master". And for the third time, a game master making records of their own decisions does not meaningfully limit them, so the idea that maps, notes and backgrounds a game master makes for themselves prevent emergence is outright wrong.

In short, your objection to maps mostly boils down to "I don't like to give information to my players because then they might realize how little precommitment I have to my own decisions". That's not a great reason to not give players maps, and it's not a great reason to use procedurally generated maps either.

NichG
2022-05-01, 02:51 PM
Sounds interesting. Got a link to the story on this one?

There used to be a campaign wiki but the host went paid only and the content was lost aside from our own notes.

Briefly: cross-system massive gonzo game, play whomever you want from whatever you want. Everyone sees the end of their home setting universe, wakes up on a spit of rock at the end of time with the power to travel back to or even create anew any moment they can specify in exchange for a bit of XP (or equivalent). However, wherever or wherever they go, there's some kind of danger of eschaton - from speaking of the End summoning it to that time, to agents of the End interfering with things. Large scale campaign premise turns out to be something like, the characters are actually forces of primal fiction facing the fact that stories conclude, and can come to terms with that in various ways.

Telok
2022-05-01, 03:42 PM
The thing that still gets me, is that there is a very, very big difference between a map with fog of war, and a map with all locations on it.

In Fallout 1, for example, the map is entirely black. Locations show up as people tell you to go to them, and there is a fairly obvious trail you are supposed to follow. Given that the entirety of the map is black, and the only things you can see, are the locations you're 'supposed to' go to, that's where you go. Now, if you've played Fallout at least once, the game is not as linear as it first appears. You can make a beeline into the black parts of the map if you know where you're going. But, no player is really organically going to do that - not on their first playthrough. Sure, maybe some did. But not a lot.
1 & 2 effectively say 'You can go anywhere you want. There's nothing stopping you, from going into the black... You wont go, though.'...

....In 3 and New Vegas, overland travel is very different. As an FPS, the game has a skybox and draw distance. The player can see certain landmarks, and can say 'I want to go to there.', and then...Go. But they are given those prompts; 'Look at this in the distance.' and a thing is shown to you. And something in your brain changes when you have a destination to go to....

I don't think its as cut and dried as you present it. In Fallout 1 you did uncover some additional map area as you traveled and there was a perk to expand that discovery radius. People like myself never took straight paths because I knew that there was more in the game than just the next scripted quest/fight, and we found those things. Then, once the initial quest time limit eased (by one or more of several options), I always just went exploring. Likewise when I first got TES Morrowind I didn't have a very powerful computer and had to crank my view distance down when outdoors. It was actually harder for me to explore in that game with that strict view limit than it had been in Fallout 1. Or you could go back to Fallout's predecessor, Wasteland, where the world map was already filled in except for one hidden end-game town. You could see and travel to Las Vegas at the very start (and get your butt kicked by death machines & landmines, dang scorpitron) without having to stumble across it during blind exploration.

Now that does fit your "some explore & some don't", but I'd call that player agency. The player can choose to do those things or they can choose to follow the script without thinking or talking to npcs they haven't been told to talk to. They have agency, the ability to do stuff outside the pre-planned script that affects the whole game (and for a hardcore playthrough, try killing literally everyone, not easy and forces exploration).

Cheesegear
2022-05-01, 09:48 PM
I feel like at this point I need to start hyperlinking to every previous post.


Railoading is about a DM negating player agency, and player agency is about players decision making for what their PCs will attempt to do.

As I've repeatedly said, if you say that railroading is about player agency, then you immediately cloud their decisions by telling them what they they can do. Anything and everything the DM plans - and subsequently shows to the players - becomes a railroad. There become fixed points on a map; If you go here, you will encounter this. Fixed locations on a fixed map most certainly is a railroad.

'But that's just DMing.' Most people are okay with a map, because it's a map. Of course it's not a railroad, it's a sandbox.

...But you said that a railroad is about altering player agency. Which is exactly what a map does. That's why we keep going back to these asinine conversations.

If you want to say that a railroad is about pre-determined outcomes, no matter what the players do. That's...Something.

If you want to say that a railroad is about reducing and/or removing player agency...That's an entirely different framing, and includes so many things - including maps.


However that does limit your players. Because they simply have far less of your gameworld to interact with, literally limiting what they can do.

No map. If a players' choice makes no difference (to them), it doesn't have any meaning. While yes, they have agency, it doesn't mean anything. If it doesn't matter whether or not the players go north, south, east or west, then the decision (to them) is meaningless. Whether the DM is making it up, or has a map just to themselves behind the screen. The DM also has a lot of freedom to do whatever they want, too. 'Making it up as they go along', or 'Quantum Ogre' makes no difference to the players.

Map. Players have agency to choose which set of rails they want to be on. The 'linear sandbox'. Once you go on these tracks, we're going on these tracks. But you can choose to get on (or off) at any time...But those tracks, lead to there. Players are given ****tons of information, which allows them to make choices, which is good. However, observation changes the outcome. Now that the players have more-perfect information, they're going to make rational, 'smart' choices, rather than choices that allow them to fail. The players are likely to only take on scenarios and encounters they think they can win. Which means that the DM has to present them with only hard choices...But you've shown the players. If you present only hard choices to the players, they're going to know about that and become...Stuck. You've affected their decision tree, and altered their agency...

Which is the literal, dictionary definition of railroading, where you influence someone's behaviour (usually with negative connotations, obviously) to make them choose to make a choice they wouldn't have made if you'd done (or said) nothing at all. Not quite as bad as gaslighting. But hey, 'Better than gaslighting' isn't a high bar to clear.


Last but not least, not really knowing the gameworld means the players can't really make PCs grounded an engaged in that world leading to more bland PCs.

Didn't you write a backstory? You can make all kinds of connections.


And? The point of all that prep work, when done is properly, is to reduce cognitive workload during actual play.

As for players being able to go somewhere they see in on a map... this is called "giving players information" and them being able to act on that information is the desired quality and reason why a game master would give them a map in the first place.

Right. A map is part of DMing. We can all agree on that.

What we don't seem to agree on is how information changes player agency, and thus becomes a railroad by peoples' definitions of it. Because we all know railroading is bad, and we all know that influencing player agency is bad...But a map is a map, it's not that...Right. It's a map.

It's part of DMing. If it's just part of DMing, then we're not going to call it a 'fixed encounter in a fixed place that if they players make a choice they will interact with that encounter no matter what they else they do', because that makes it almost sound really close to that thing we don't like. No, no. Maps are DMing. Don't think about it.


But hey, since you insist on using that term: what "quantum ogre" means is that a game master is using imperfect information as cover to hide the fact that player choices are false. An event is unavoidable just because a game master desired so.

Then I am using the term correctly. That's what I do whenever I feel like it. No maps is a great source of non-information which means a land without maps can be seeded with Quantum Ogres. I know exactly what I'm saying. The trick is not to only fill your map with Quantum Ogres. The trick is to give your players information as they come across it (like Fallout 1/2), so that a map isn't entirely blank. You populate it as you need to, as the players...Do stuff.

But all through the middle, in all the black, is anything you want. Including Quantum Ogres.


And now you show you don't understand what a "railroad" means. A railroad forces a specific path and specific outcome. Maps do not inherently do either.

Yes they do. A fixed starting point, with pre-determined a terminus. A map creates...Well, a map. I've seen several maps of train lines in my life. If you just removed all the tracks on the map, the tracks would still be there, in the world. The fixed points and fixed locations would still be on the map, however. If you go in this direction, that's what's there. No questions. You can get there any way you want. But that's what's there.

Now of course, that's the description of a linear sandbox. But to me, I'm still conceptualising a linear sandbox as a centralised train station, because when I see a linear sandbox (such as Fallout 3), I immediately see a train station map (the fact that the subway also happens to be a major location in FO3 is just incidental).


Most maps achieve the exact opposite: by giving players more information, they allow players to plan more steps ahead and choose a route that fits their own objectives, rather than simply following path of least resistance based on immediate situation.

I guarantee that if I gave my players more, better, more-perfect information, they always choose the path of least resistance - nobody wants to fail, certainly nobody wants to die. I'm not sure why they haven't all built Stealth characters with super senses, which would enable them to skip encounters. Then again thinking about it for longer than not-at-all, my players want encounters, they just want the ones they can win. Derp.


Giving players more information does not actually prevent emergence - on either side of table.

Emergent gameplay. No, not really. Emergent decisions, it absolutely does.


And for the third time, a game master making records of their own decisions does not meaningfully limit them, so the idea that maps, notes and backgrounds a game master makes for themselves prevent emergence is outright wrong.

It doesn't prevent emergence; It limits and changes it.

Now again, if we want to say maps allow players to make better and/or safer decisions. That's true. Of course it does. Everyone wants to make good decisions.

If we want to frame the conversation around player agency, however. Then maps absolutely have the potential to negate player behaviour (dungeons are a great example), and they definitely alter player behaviour. However, if you're under the assumption that changing player behaviour is always bad, then you can't see it that way. You can only see it 'Well that's just DMing.' If players are only making certain decisions, or they're only making 'good' decisions, that's a railroad. At least in terms of how you - the DM - are influencing their behavior by giving them information before they even need it.


In short, your objection to maps mostly boils down to "I don't like to give information to my players because then they might realize how little precommitment I have to my own decisions."

**** me dead that's an assumption and a half.

I don't like giving my players information before they need it, because it influences my players' decisions, instead of them doing something they would normally do without said information that they shouldn't even have. I don't like maps because they change the way the game is played. Another upside to imperfect information is how I can see the ground with as many Quantum Ogre plants as I want.


The player can choose to do those things or they can choose to follow the script without thinking or talking to npcs they haven't been told to talk to. They have agency, the ability to do stuff outside the pre-planned script that affects the whole game (and for a hardcore playthrough, try killing literally everyone, not easy and forces exploration).

My point is about influencing player behaviour. Influencing player choices.

If a map is completely black, if there is no map, the player will just have to pick a direction and walk. Now, there's nothing particularly meaningful in which direction they walk since no direction makes a difference. But they are discovering things along the way and making decisions based only on the information they have. They know where they've been, they know what they've done. But they don't know where they're going. Should we take a left? Should we take a right? Who knows!? Just make a decision and let's walk.

If you want a magical sword you have to find it. Where would you like to start looking? Where do you think one might be? Let's play that out. This is hard emergent gameplay. The DM can only react to what the player does, and the player...Can do anything. Does the player think a Sword is buried in the mountains? The DM needs to start writing about mountains. Does the player think he can find a magical sword in a City? Time to get urban. Or, the DM can just Quantum Ogre the player into an encounter with a magical sword regardless of where the player goes...But the player is going to think the encounter is a result of their choices.

If a map has a few locations on it...With all the space in between blank. The players now have information. They know [x] is left, but they don't know what's right. If [x] is something they want, something they're interested in, then they have no reason to go right. Vice versa if [x] is something they don't want. Why the **** would we ever go left when we know what's waiting for us? The DM influences player behavior by showing them things they want - and don't want. And thus subtly - perhaps without even realising it - actually changes the players' decisions, usually without the players even knowing that they're doing it. After all, that's just DMing. That's just the way the game is played. That's not changing player agency. That's just like, the game, man.

But, inside all that black space? The stuff the players haven't been shown...Is a bunch of traps and lies. You've shown them the treasure chest at the end of the hallway. Now they have to make it through the hallway. The players have fallen for the DM's trap card. But they only fell for the trap because the DM put the chest at the end. If there was no chest at the end, would the players even want to go down the hallway in the first place? Of course not. Why would they? ...Again, but that's just the game, man. That's part of DMing. And it's not influencing player agency. Because that's the bad thing that no good DM would ever do.
(Even better, the players go down the hallway, avoiding and triggering a bunch of traps...And the chest is an illusion. That would just be...*thumbs up*.)

Magical Sword is in location. You have to go there, and scout it out and interact with whatever happens to be there, if you want that. If you don't want to take any risks, then there is no magical sword for you.

Then there's full, perfect maps with perfect information. You see the start. You see the destination. If you go to a location, you'll be fighting Goblins, because that's where the Goblin Camp is. I told you that's where it is. You know what's left, and you know what's right. Just make the decisions you want to make knowing all the risks in advance with very few surprises. Also note that it's very difficult for me - the DM - to actually change anything once I've told it you...But I told you at the start, when I gave you all the information. You actually know everything you need to know already.

Magical Sword is in location, however over time it was buried and on the top Goblins built a small village. These Goblins rose to a little bit of power and they have a Shaman, as well as wolves and a Worg or two. Oh well now you have the entire risk and reward...You want to know if I'll tell you about other risks and other rewards and you just want to choose whichever one is easiest for the highest reward? And you'll come back to the other ones if you feel like it after you've gained several levels and everything is way easier for the same reward? Yeah I thought you might say something like that.

Tanarii
2022-05-01, 09:51 PM
As I've repeatedly said, if you say that railroading is about player agency, then you immediately cloud their decisions by telling them what they they can do. Anything and everything the DM plans - and subsequently shows to the players - becomes a railroad. There become fixed points on a map; If you go here, you will encounter this. Fixed locations on a fixed map most certainly is a railroad.
Okay, so we've solidly established at this point you just don't have any understanding of what player agency at all, which is why you don't understand what railroading actually is.

Cheesegear
2022-05-01, 09:54 PM
Okay, so we've solidly established at this point you just don't have any understanding of what player agency at all, which is why you don't understand what railroading actually is.

I'm using your framing.
If you don't like the arguments against your own framing...Choose a different definition of what railroading is, and choose a different metric for what defines changing, altering, influencing and removing player agency actually means.

'That's removing player agency...But that isn't, that's just the game.' ...Oh, okay.

Before these threads, and this bizarre framing, I would've said that 'Railroading is when the DM says you can't do something, or something doesn't work, when you should be able to do something, or when it should work.' That would be my working definition of railroading. And that's clearly stupid because when a DM just says 'No.' red flags go up immediately and everyone freaks out.

When you frame railroading around 'altering or negating player agency'...Suddenly I have several problems. Because player agency is anything a player does - or doesn't - do. And there are several ways to mess with that, many of which are actually encouraged by the game design, and people don't freak out, because if it's part of the game.
But you can't admit to ****ing with player agency because everyone has apparently decided that ****ing with player agency, means railroading, and railroading is bad. Even though it's part of game design?

'That's not messing with player agency, that's the game. You're allowed to do that.'

At this point it's like...Messing with player agency is only bad when you think it's bad...Sometimes it's totally fine to mess with player agency, and sometimes it's not. Even though we framed the bad thing around messing with player agency being bad.

Duff
2022-05-01, 10:50 PM
Interesting way to frame it, but there's still a middle ground somewhere, isn't there?
Maybe, "it's still a continuum, not an either/or choice" is a better way to get my thought across.

There most definitely is a continuum. And a game's position on that can vary over time and over scale.
One might have a mega dungeon where the story can be quite emergent, but some or even all the encounters are quite authored.

An authored encounter - "This room is haunted by 3 Wraiths. Once the whole party has entered the room, the wraiths will emerge from the floor and start to attack. Any wraith reduced below 30 hp will stop making direct attacks, instead, they will attempt to hide, then get close enough to make a surprise attack. If the PCs flee, the wraiths will not pursue.

Or a reasonable emergent encounter. "This is the entry to the goblin sector. The 4 goblins on guard will assess any intruder to work out how to respond. They may choose to fight, talk or flee and will use any tactics that seem appropriate. If a fight goes against them, 1 goblin will attempt to flee to warn others while any remaining goblins prepare to sell their lives dearly. They don't have the authority to make any promises for the tribe, but they can allow visitors past their gate if they accept the intruders aren't hostile."

Hytheter
2022-05-02, 12:08 AM
As I've repeatedly said, if you say that railroading is about player agency, then you immediately cloud their decisions by telling them what they they can do. Anything and everything the DM plans - and subsequently shows to the players - becomes a railroad. There become fixed points on a map; If you go here, you will encounter this. Fixed locations on a fixed map most certainly is a railroad.

Is the menu at a restaurant a railroad?


...But you said that a railroad is about altering player agency. Which is exactly what a map does. That's why we keep going back to these asinine conversations.

Railroading is bad because it reduces or negates agency, not simply because it 'alters' it. A map (or more generally, information about the world state) only alters agency in the sense that it actually provides agency. It increases agency. That's good! We want that!

Stumbling blindly and randomly through an absolute fog of war isn't agency - the players have no capacity to make meaningful decisions or act in any deliberate manner, they are just being strung along by the whims of chance and fate (or the DM). This isn't railroading either but it might as well be when it comes to player agency.


No map. If a players' choice makes no difference (to them), it doesn't have any meaning. While yes, they have agency, it doesn't mean anything. If it doesn't matter whether or not the players go north, south, east or west, then the decision (to them) is meaningless.

And this is supposed to be... a good thing? :smallconfused: Player choices shouldn't be meaningless. Making meaningful choices is literally the whole point of the game.


Map. Players have agency to choose which set of rails they want to be on.

If you were being railroaded there would only be one set of rails and you wouldn't get to choose. That's what railroading is.


But those tracks, lead to there.

Yes, once the players make a decision about what should happen, they will generally act in ways that brings that decision to reality. Brilliant observation.


Now that the players have more-perfect information, they're going to make rational, 'smart' choices, rather than choices that allow them to fail. The players are likely to only take on scenarios and encounters they think they can win.

Again, why do you say this like it's a bad thing? Making smart decisions and winning as a result feels good. That's what makes the game fun.


Which is the literal, dictionary definition of railroading, where you influence someone's behaviour (usually with negative connotations, obviously) to make them choose to make a choice they wouldn't have made if you'd done (or said) nothing at all.

No, that's an intentionally vague defintion you've concoted to fit your narrative. If you actually look in a dictionary you'll find that railroading isn't mere 'influence'. It's coercion. It's force. It's pushing someone towards the outcome you desire regardless of what they want. If you are at liberty to choose the outcome you desire then you are not being railroaded by definition, especially when you can choose 'none of the above'.

The menu at a restaurant isn't a railroad. You can order whatever you want, and you might even be able to order off-menu. What would be railroading is the restaurant only served a preset course meal. Or if the waiter hid the menu and only told you about the nightly special. Or declared that you have 5 seconds to order lest you be kicked out, essentially forcing you to pick whatever's at the top of the list. Or threatened to stab your wife if you don't order the steak.

Besides having a menu (analagous to a mapped or described world with multiple options) versus a set course (railroad) what other option is there, really? Random chance (blank slate with no information)? I'll take a menu, thanks - of the three it's the only one that actually gives me any agency to decide what I'm eating tonight.

Vahnavoi
2022-05-02, 06:26 AM
@Cheesegear: open up any map of a railroad network and take a good look at it. Notice what doesn't happen?

You aren't forced to take any of those routes. Merely looking at the map won't move you one inch. Because you are not on a train.

That's what you perpetually miss about the railroading metaphor. Maps illustrate and imply routes. But they don't force you to take those routes. Whenever there's more than one route, you have to make a choice. The map is, straightforwardly, illustrating agency.

And it is trivial to make a map where every added point of interest increases the number of possible routes, and thus the number of choices, exponentially. This makes any protest involving rationality of your players ring hollow. Presence of a map only makes finding the best solution easy when the map is simple. Though given this discussion, your maps aren't even simple. They are non-existent, because you don't actually know what information to give your players to make them behave in a way acceptable to you.

KorvinStarmast
2022-05-02, 07:38 AM
...But then you went for a weaksauce 'it depends', and now we're back to the piece of string where nobody is going to agree on how long that string should be. While we're at it, did anyone even decide on what colour the string is, yet? Chartreuse. :smallcool: (If I am the DM it is, if I am a player it might be).

Have you managed to reconcile "player wanting to make decisions for the content" =/= player agency yet? If not, there's no further point in discussing what railroading is until you understand what player agency actually is. Perhaps the discussion is fruitful in better finding common ground on definitions (although as I read through the following posts I am not so sure that was the destination reached).

The point, to some discussers here, would be this: don't confuse questions of player agency for questions of if a game is authored or emergent. Even if the dichtomy between authored and emergent games holds on some level, player agency is not dichtomous along the same line. This I can wrap my arms around, and I'll pose this scenario with the above in mind. Two cases for the same adventuring party. There is a rumor that a century or so ago a singing sword (magical in some way, with the idea shamelessly stolen from a Bugs Bunny cartoon from years ago) was lost when the knight who wielded it went on errantry off in the Deep, Dark Forest. The party of players decide that they want to find that sword since (1) it's magical and (2) there may be other rumors of what the song can do and (3) one of them thinks that they might be able to score some income by having the sword and performing with it as a band/traveling troupe ...

a. Authored adventure: The old, crumbling tower has a basement, in the bottom floor of which is a chest, and inside that chest is the sword. The part has to find the tower, and figure out where in the tower it is, and then overcome whatever obstacles there are in the tower (mundane, magical, critters, traps, what have you). The sword will be there, waiting for them unless they all die in the process or flee since the dangers are too dangerous.
b. Emergent adventure: they head into the forest and what they encounter is a result of die rolls, their choice of what direction to head, and any treasure uncovered may or may not include that sword. The quest may take two sessions or fifteen.
c. Not sure which: the singing sword may not be in the forest anymore, and they may discover it during a completely different adventure arc (the sword is on a table of possible treasures that is randomly rolled) since a bandit chieftan has it now and they run into the bandits eventually as a result of various "what do we do now" choices that they have made.

Is that close to the mark of what the OP is aiming at?

And? The point of all that prep work, when done is properly, is to reduce cognitive workload during actual play. The game master doesn't actually lose ability to change any unrevealed detail. A game master is not meaningfully limited by records of their own past decisions. Yes, GM's adapting on the fly is a part of that role at the table.

Giving players more information does not actually prevent emergence - on either side of table. What usually changes is type of emergent gameplay. My players have the tried and true habit of ignoring a great deal of information that I provide to them. (Segue into Alexandrians's three clue rule and adapting it to multiple situations is probably not necessary here ...)


Before these threads, and this bizarre framing, I would've said that 'Railroading is when the DM says you can't do something, or something doesn't work, when you should be able to do something, or when it should work.' That would be my working definition of railroading. And that's clearly stupid because when a DM just says 'No.' red flags go up immediately and everyone freaks out. I said no the other night. Early in the adventure they had a fight that was kind of tough, head back to an intersection (where the sphinx was who had let them into the dungeon) and decided to set up Leomund's Tiny Hut. About halfway through the ritual I informed the bard that "It's not working" (They didn't know that the sphinx cast dispel magic as he was doing that, nor did any of them pursue it. They took a short rest and proceeded on, and nobody freaked out).

There most definitely is a continuum. And a game's position on that can vary over time and over scale.
An authored encounter - "This room is haunted by 3 Wraiths. Once the whole party has entered the room, the wraiths will emerge from the floor and start to attack. Any wraith reduced below 30 hp will stop making direct attacks, instead, they will attempt to hide, then get close enough to make a surprise attack. If the PCs flee, the wraiths will not pursue.

Or a reasonable emergent encounter. "This is the entry to the goblin sector. The 4 goblins on guard will assess any intruder to work out how to respond. They may choose to fight, talk or flee and will use any tactics that seem appropriate. If a fight goes against them, 1 goblin will attempt to flee to warn others while any remaining goblins prepare to sell their lives dearly. They don't have the authority to make any promises for the tribe, but they can allow visitors past their gate if they accept the intruders aren't hostile." Case two seems authored to me.

This leaves me with the feeling that the initial distinction is less useful than initially proposed.

Tanarii
2022-05-02, 08:56 AM
I'm using your framing.
If you don't like the arguments against your own framing...Choose a different definition of what railroading is, and choose a different metric for what defines changing, altering, influencing and removing player agency actually means.No. You're just not understanding what player agency is, so you don't understand what railroading is. Until you understand player agency, you will never understand what railroading is, you'll continue to put forward definitionally wrong use of both terms, continue to expand those into wildly incorrect hypothesis and theories on gaming, and everyone will continue to push back on you.

Or you can do some basic research on the term, and that'll stop happening.

Cheesegear
2022-05-02, 09:44 AM
I said no the other night. Early in the adventure they had a fight that was kind of tough, head back to an intersection (where the sphinx was who had let them into the dungeon) and decided to set up Leomund's Tiny Hut. About halfway through the ritual I informed the bard that "It's not working" (They didn't know that the sphinx cast dispel magic as he was doing that, nor did any of them pursue it. They took a short rest and proceeded on, and nobody freaked out).

In my stupid doodoo brain, there were two kinds of railroad before these threads.

The 'hard' railroad where your DM says 'You can't do that', and forces you back on the tracks. No but seriously... My character can jump 12 ft., so why can't I jump over this 10 ft. hole? This doesn't make sense. The DM has arbitrarily decided that you can't go east - Invisible walls for some reason.

Then there's the 'soft' railroad, where the DM says 'You can't do that because...' The magical lock needs the magical key. You can't go left because you need the key from the right. Please do the right door, first. You can't solve this problem using spells because there's an Antimagic Field, please find a different solution. The NPC isn't willing to talk to you unless you have the thing...Get the thing. These hostiles fight to the death, you can't talk them out of this without magic. As long as the DM seems reasonable, a lot of people don't even realise the DM is influencing the outcomes of scenarios. Because that's just...The scenario. It's obvious we couldn't solve the scenario the way we wanted to because the DM said that thing. It makes sense. We beat the scenario/adventure in the way we chose...Didn't we?

That's all I thought railroading was. Until I hit these threads and started asking questions.


Or you can do some basic research on the term, and that'll stop happening.

1. Player agency is anything a player chooses to do, chooses to say, or anywhere the player goes. Player agency, is the player's ability to make choices. Dice notwithstanding.
2. Player agency is their ability to impact the story and/or the world. That is, their choices have consequences.

So far, so good.

In regards to the first, specifically; Making choices is dependent on the amount of information the player has. Reducing the amount of information that a player has, reduces their ability to make choices, until such point as you have no information at all, and no real way of getting it, and thus choices are meaningless. That is, information is tied to agency. Or rather, information is tied to meaningful agency, and meaningless agency. Not necessarily 'more' or 'less'. But that certainly is part of it. More information allows for a better decision tree.

A railroad, or forms of railroading, is when you reduce or remove player agency. Now, I'd be happy if removing player agency was the definition (i.e; The DM says you can't do something, when you can.). I know what that is. You know what that is. It's always bad, and it's almost always blatantly obvious.

But more than one person has put the word 'reduce' in there as well; If you define railroading as not simply a removal of player agency, but also a reduction in player agency...Then almost everything a DM does, reduces player agency. The fact that there is a DM at the table at all, is a reduction in player agency because a player's ability to impact the world is always reduced by some factor that the DM can't make up or isn't willing to do:

You can have chocolate or vanilla.
**** you. I want peppermint.
I don't have peppermint. I can't give you that.
My agency has been reduced where I can't make the choice I want; Railroad.

Then of course the DM provides false choices via misinformation. Hostile monsters that can do undetectable tricks, NPCs lying, or simply being wrong. Remember, information - and especially accurate information - is a key component of making agency matter. Now, when a DM does this, he is not necessarily removing or reducing player agency. But he is ****ing with player agency in order to drive to the outcome he has already set up; If an NPC lies to a player, and the players act on that information...The DM has engineered the outcome through the lie. When a DM deliberately sets up a conclusion by providing bad or straight-up false information; That's certainly a loss of player agency.

'You start in a tavern.' The player(s) did not choose to be there. The DM forced them there. The players' ability to choose where to go has already been undermined in the first sentence of the first session.

If reduction - but not necessarily removal - of player agency, doesn't count as a railroad. Then this whole thing has been a waste of time. Just like the other time. C'est la vie.

OldTrees1
2022-05-02, 12:20 PM
A railroad, or forms of railroading, is when you reduce or remove player agency. Now, I'd be happy if removing player agency was the definition (i.e; The DM says you can't do something, when you can.). I know what that is. You know what that is. It's always bad, and it's almost always blatantly obvious.

But more than one person has put the word 'reduce' in there as well; If you define railroading as not simply a removal of player agency, but also a reduction in player agency...Then almost everything a DM does, reduces player agency. The fact that there is a DM at the table at all, is a reduction in player agency because a player's ability to impact the world is always reduced by some factor that the DM can't make up or isn't willing to do:

You can have chocolate or vanilla.
**** you. I want peppermint.
I don't have peppermint. I can't give you that.
My agency has been reduced where I can't make the choice I want; Railroad.

How do you differentiate between reduce and remove?

NPC: You can have chocolate, vanilla, or peppermint.
PC: I want peppermint.
GM: No. Pick between chocolate or vanilla.

Hmm. The PC can still pick between chocolate and vanilla despite being offered peppermint as an option. They still have agency without this choice, but it is less than they had before the DM negated the choice.

GM: Your PC can pick what icecream they will receive but they get no other decisions this campaign.

Hmm. The PC can still pick what icecream they will receive so they still have some agency in the scope of the campaign as a whole. However that is the only agency they will have. This hypothetical campaign has significantly reduced agency but agency was not entirely removed.

People use the word "reduce" because just using "remove" lead to semantic arguments. Also notice Tanarii is using the word "negates" which is subtly different from remove. From my understanding Tanarii uses the word "negates" to highlight the agency was granted and then revoked/removed. That would also highlight a difference between my 1st and 2nd examples.

KorvinStarmast
2022-05-02, 02:56 PM
'You start in a tavern.' The player(s) did not choose to be there. The DM forced them there. The players' ability to choose where to go has already been undermined in the first sentence of the first session. But it's a trope, not railroading. You have to start the game somewhere.

I've been started on ships at sea, at the dockside in a riverside village, in prison, riding a covered wagon in a caravan, in a library in a major town, in the duke's private chambers thanks to his chamberlain having found the six of us as the most likely prospects for this delicate mission he needs done on the down low...and in non D&D games we've started at a starport, fishing by a river, in a harbor waiting for immigration to process our paperwork, as the next one up in the arena ...

BRC
2022-05-02, 02:59 PM
But it's a trope, not railroading. You have to start the game somewhere. (I've been started on ships at sea, at the dockside in a riverside village, in prison, riding a covered wagon in a caravan, in a library in a major town, in the duke's private chambers thanks to his chamberlain having found the six of us as the most likely prospects for this delicate mission he needs done on the down low...)

I think Cheesegear's point is that if your definition of Railroading is as wide as "Player agency is negated or restrained" then even the classic "Start in a tavern" is Railroading, because Player Agency has been removed/reduced by the simple act of picking where the campaign starts.

Vahnavoi
2022-05-02, 03:16 PM
The real reason why initial game position isn't railroading is because it's something players agree to when they choose to play a game. That's not reduction of agency, it is exercise of it. For there to be any forcing, the game master has to, get this, use actual force and coercion to get players to play. In absence of such behaviour, using "railroading" to describe initial position of a game is a pretty good sign you are using the term badly.

BRC
2022-05-02, 03:26 PM
The real reason why initial game position isn't railroading is because it's something players agree to when they choose to play a game. That's not reduction of agency, it is exercise of it. For there to be any forcing, the game master has to, get this, use actual force and coercion to get players to play. In absence of such behaviour, using "railroading" to describe initial position of a game is a pretty good sign you are using the term badly.

I don't think we're going to settle this, but that's a good point.

So, the image of "Railroading" is some Railroad Tracks. With that in mind, I think any reasonable definition of Railroading needs to include there only being a single path forwards. It is possible to have a game or scenario with less freedom than you would like that is not necessarily "Railroading".

Unless we just want to go with a purely subjective definition of "Railroading is when the DM stops you from doing something you think you should have been able to do".

I'd say that "Railroading", specifically, needs to include the following factors.

1) The DM has a pre-written path, at least at the Micro level, for the campaign to follow
And
2) That path is actively enforced by the DM.

"You start in a tavern" is not Railroading because that's only one scene.

The DM having a plan, but letting you go elsewhere is no railroading, because that DM is not enforcing the path they have pre-written.


This does leave a lot of room for things that people may not consider "Not enough Agency" that wouldn't be specifically "Railroading", but I'm okay with that.

The goal here is to say that, if you are being Railroaded, then you have no meaningful way to affect the story being told (Hence "Pre-written at least at the Micro level"). Generally, even if a campaign is pre-written at the Macro level, there's still more then enough room for the PC's to dramatically change the nature of the story, with their earlier actions changing the context of the later stages, even if those later stages have their general outlines sketched out.

Vahnavoi
2022-05-02, 04:02 PM
If you don't think we can settle on a meaning for "railroading", the right choice, as noted earlier, is to drop the metaphor, for it's useless.

Once you ditch the term, what are you left with? An observation that initial position of a game places limits to player agency. That's true. However, it is a trivial truth that doesn't prove anything about quality of a game, before you do the next step and count the agency players have. Agency is counted in number of meaningful moves, where "meaningful" means leading to mutually exclusive game states. In a game of imperfect information with incomplete rules, such as most tabletop roleplaying games, you can't actually finish this step, but even a partial count rapidly and trivially distinquishes between linear, multilinear, and non-linear structures. In a map-based game, the only thing you need for proof is using the map to move around.

Or, put differently: don't count down from infinity and think of game design in terms of reducing agency. Count up from zero and think of game design in terms of constructing it.

Cluedrew
2022-05-02, 08:03 PM
This seems like just another variable, about how much one's actions affect future scenes, rather than the pathing of said scenes. Although very important to my enjoyment of the game, I'm not sure that they impact whether a game is Emergent vs Authored - I think they're independent variables.Besides the motivating example about why you might want to mix these structures, I think everything I said was about the order in which you go through, or can go through, scenes. kyoryu seemed to be trying to get at that* matter.

When you have one scene you it sits alone. But if you have two scenes are they ordered (A and then B), unordered (A and B, or B and A) or branching (A or B, but only one)? I'm still debating if optional (maybe A then B) is its own thing or not, it might be branching plus ordered where only one branch has a scene ((- or A) then B). And none of this is getting into any effects on scenes beyond when and if they are visited.

*
No, when I refer to "authored" I don't mean the world - I mean the path that hte players take.

Cheesegear
2022-05-03, 12:43 AM
Unless we just want to go with a purely subjective definition of "Railroading is when the DM stops you from doing something you think you should have been able to do".

Well, to be fair, that's the only time that it shows its head.

'Hey DM, I want to cast a spell.'
You're Grappled, you can't.
'But that's not what Grappled, does.'
You can't cast any spells because I said so.


I'd say that "Railroading", specifically, needs to include the following factors.

1) The DM has a pre-written path, at least at the Micro level, for the campaign to follow
And
2) That path is actively enforced by the DM.

Well that usually applies to the above.
The DM wants something to happen, and if you try and deviate, they wont let you.

I should be able to cast spells whilst Grappled.
The DM wont let me though, because he's forcing me to watch the scene happen.


The DM having a plan, but letting you go elsewhere is no railroading, because that DM is not enforcing the path they have pre-written.

Now we start getting into muddy waters, which down this path lies ruin:
What if the DM has two pre-written paths? If you pick one, are you still on a railroad?

I think I have an idea:

How much Agency is Not Enough?

1a. You go to an ice-cream store, you must buy ice-cream. They only have one flavour.
1b. You go to an ice-cream store, you must buy ice-cream. They only have one flavour, but it's the one you want.

2a. You go to an ice-cream store, you must buy ice-cream. They only two flavours. Neither of them are the flavour you want.
2b. You go to an ice-cream store, you must buy ice-cream. They only two flavours. You want both, you flip a coin.

3. You go to an ice-cream store, you must buy ice-cream. You can have any flavour...Except your favourite.

4. You go to an ice-cream store. You must buy ice-cream. You can have anything you want.

5a. You go to an ice-cream store. You don't want ice-cream. You get nothing. You stand around for a while because the staff wont let you leave until you buy something.
5b. ...The staff kick you out for not buying anything, and stop stealing the wi-fi.

6. Ice-cream is stupid. You walk past the store and go for something else. Your friends get mad because they want ice-cream and want you to stop at the ice-cream store.

7. You go to an ice-cream store, and demand waffles. You get upset when people ask you to leave.

8. You walk around town, anywhere you want. You don't even see the ice-cream store. Why would you even want to?

9. This hypothetical is dumb. I want to buy shoes.

Vahnavoi
2022-05-03, 03:27 AM
Not enough agency for what?

1a) I have no agency once I step into the store, as far as buying icecream goes.
1b) same as above, things are just going my way regardless.

2a) I have one choice with two mutually exclusive options, so my agency is 2. I have no agency to get the exact flavor of icecream I want.
2b) Same as above, except I cede the decision to random chance to choose between second best options.

3) I have one option with N mutually exclusive potions, where N stands for total number of flavors available. My agency is N. I have no agency to get the exact flavor I want.

4) I have one option with N mutually exclusive potions, where N stands for total number of flavors available, so my total agency of N. I do have agency to get the exact flavor I want.

5a) I have agency when it comes to buying icecream, which I'm not exercising because I don't want any. I don't have agency to leave the store. The situation says nothing else about my agency.
5b) I exercised my agency to be a petty freeloader. Store staff exercised their agency to punish me for bad behaviour. My agency to be a freeloader was hence limited by store staff. The situation says nothing else about my agency.

6) I had one choice with two mutually exclusive options: go into the store or not, so my agency is 2. I exercised my agency to not go. My friends have negative opinion of my choice. The situation says nothing else about my agency.

7) For whatever reasons the people at the shop are refusing to serve me waffles, so I have no agency to get waffles there. I have a negative opinion about it, but the situation says nothing else about my agency.

8) The size and contents of the town as well as my own objectives are unknown. There is no way to count my agency in any shape or form.

9) None of the above situations say anything about your agency to get you some shoes.

---

None of these hypotheticals involve weighing multiple objectives, most of them involve just one choice and lists of options are short, incomplete or trivial. None of them are formulated as games are sparse in detail. For these reasons, they can say very little beyond utterly trivial.

Talakeal
2022-05-03, 04:20 AM
I have always used railroading as the GM warping the setting / rules of the game to stop the PCs from doing something.

It doesn't have to be a single path, or even a linear scenario.

There can be a thousand open doors, but if one of them is barred to the players, it is still a railroad. Assuming that the barricade is put there by DM FIAT and defended with paper thin excuses of course.


Agree? Disagree?

Vahnavoi
2022-05-03, 05:28 AM
@Talakeal: that is exactly the kind of bad formulation that leads to classic bad arguments about railroading. It is overbroad and hence fails to capture what actually makes the practice bad.

KorvinStarmast
2022-05-03, 08:52 AM
I think Cheesegear's point is that if your definition of Railroading Stop right there. I was not offering a definition of railroading. I was disagreeing that "start in a tavern" is railroading at all.

What I was offering was examples of how to start a game, which can vary with both genre and game.
I have been in a number of RPGs where the first thing we, as players, have done is figure out mostly on our own the following: "So, how did we {number of characters} end up in the same place to {do something}? Do we know each other from before, or do we need to introduce each other to each other?"

In Traveller (original) quite a bit of that is helped by how one's background/backstory gets created.
In Golden Sky Stories it was led somewhat by the situation offered by our facilitator
In our latest D&D campaign it was a many messages long (over a few weeks of campaign prep) discussion between the players and the DM where we all finally arrived at "Yeah, we all went to the same school, the headmaster knows that each of us is unusual, and he's got connections such that he more or less got us to travel up river and meet at the dockside of {city} to look into something that interests him..."

The games need a starting point. (Step 0, if you will). In Monopoly, you all start on the "Go" square.

@Talakael - that's an adventure design thing, along the lines of "why did you put this in front of that players if it didn't offer a choice?" There are times that this isn't a bad idea, and there are times that it is a poor idea; in isolation it's not illustrative of much of anything.

PhoenixPhyre
2022-05-03, 09:13 AM
The games needs a starting point. (Step 0, if you will). In Monopoly, you all start on the "Go" square.

Agreed. The initial conditions are different from the actual gameplay--at that point, you start where you start because you all decided that's where you'd start. OOC. The characters have nothing to do with it.

And yes, agreeing to play with a DM constitutes agreement to start somewhere. This might be
a) consciously and openly discussed and decided (in which case everyone has full agency)
b) delegated to a module writer, with the module known in advance (in which case you have exercised your agency to delegate and as part of choosing the module)
c) delegated to the DM who has pitched a campaign to you (in which case you've exercised your agency to play or not play based on the pitch)
d) delegated to the DM who hasn't pitched a campaign, but because you trust the DM (in which case you've exercised your agency in trusting the DM despite knowing you don't know)
e) One of A-D above, but with a lie (e.g. you decided together as in a, but then the DM starts you elsewhere). This one is a breakdown of good behavior. And the appropriate response is (at least) to talk to the DM, although in egregious cases or where that triggers enough red flags, getting up and walking away (an exercise of agency!) is appropriate.

-----

One reason to talk about diminishment of agency or negation of instances of agency is that the players always have some agency. They can stop playing. Sure, that's a nuclear option. But agency count >= 1 in all cases (outside of some bizarre criminal D&D gangs, I guess, where you're shackled and forced to play). And we should separate
a) the natural ebb and flow of agency throughout a campaign. For example, often the consequences of your actions (a necessary part of agency) reduce, alter, or limit your scope-of-choice. And agency does not include the free choice of consequences. And you don't have agency to, say, demand that you can shoot lasers out of your fingers unless you built your character with that option. It's not a denial of agency to stick to the rules you agreed to (you limited your own agency by doing so, which is normal and natural). Leaving, say, content creation up to the DM isn't a denial of agency--it's a delegation of agency. You chose (in part by playing D&D) to do so. And now you can't justly complain that you're being railroaded in that specific thing.

from

b) cases where agency was offered but then subverted or negated by intentional, non-causally-implied choice on someone else's part. If offered a choice between chocolate, vanilla, and peppermint icecream (you have choice, you have logical consequences, you have knowledge, so you have agency) and then no matter what you pick you always get coffee-flavored ice cream, there's a denial of agency. If, however, you were only offered chocolate and vanilla, that's not a deprivation of agency because you can't pick bubblegum flavor. There is no part of agency that says your scope-of-choice[1] is total or infinite.

[1] scope of choice == the number of options to pick from when a choice can be made. This is different from number of times throughout a session/campaign/whatever that you get to make choices or how meaningful each of those choices is in some grander scheme. If you can pick between 3 cards, once, your scope of choice is 3 while your "agency count" is 1.

kyoryu
2022-05-03, 10:07 AM
I've pretty much abandoned this thread since it's turned into the usual railroad discussion.

Anyway.

To me, divergent sounds authored.

And emergent isn't, fundamentally, about what order you go through things in. It's about how the scenes come about.

I still maintain there's a strong separation, even if not entirely a binary. Because at the end of the day, prep for an emergent game is very different than for an authored game. For an emergent game, I might plan NPCs, some locations, their agendas, etc. The one thing I do not prep is individual scenes/encounters. However, prepping individual scenes/encounters is a large part of prepping an authored scenario.

(Of course, the initial scene for almost any scenario is likely prepped. Something has to get things started.)

Dungeons could be either. The question is really whether or not the dungeon reacts to things or not - can the players make an alliance with the orc tribe to go and help them against the kobolds? Or can a failed incursion into the kobold lair cause them to run to the orcs for help in exchange for servitude? Things like this can change the game experience as a result of PC actions - if they're happening, it's an emergent game. If the dungeon is really just a set of linked encounters with little interaction between them? Then it's authored (and most published dungeons that I've seen these days are authored).

So really, to me, an emergent game is what happens when the players are given freedom as to how they solve problems at the macro level. The GM cannot prep scenes for this because they don't know what the players are going to do. (a) In a game like that, the results of those decisions are usually immediate and apparent, rather than slightly disconnected (I might call it "side effect agency" - you're having impacts that may be significant in the world, but don't really impact your path). If your problem is "free the duke", maybe the players will plan to assassinate him, or rally nobles against him, or lead the commoners in a frontal assault, or... some illusionists might hide this by turning all of these paths into "sneak into the castle and get to the Duke's room" with various end goals in mind (assassinate the duke, get evidence to use against him for the nobles, or get proof of his wrongdoings to rally the crowd), but that's illusionism so :/

Ideally each scene in an emergent game changes things. Certain paths become open, others become closed. Sometimes this impact is major, sometimes minor. Prepping scenes for an emergent game wastes a lot of time, because you throw a lot away. No two parties will end up in anywhere near the same state.

So, if we look at playing a game as:

1. scene starts
2. we figure out what happens
3. the GM figures out effects on the world
4. we determine what the next scene is
5. go to 1

then in most authored games, the majority of interesting gameplay happens in step 2, and step 4 primarily belongs to the GM. Step 3 is mostly predetermined. For emergent games, step 4 primarily belongs to the players, and is where a good chunk of the interesting gameplay is, because step 3 is not known in advance, in any way. Note that in an emergent game, step 4 isn't "which of the pre-prepared scenes do we want to do next".

Authored games are great! If you really want to get into the nitty gritty of the combat system, an authored game is probably the best way to do it - what you lose in macro agency, you gain in the ability for the GM to really dive in and craft interesting encounters. Authored games also allow the GM to, well, author plot elements, twists and turns and things like that. The majority of games are probably authored, and they're fine! Lots of people prefer that.

Some people don't. Because what they're looking for is the ability to solve problems their own way and really see the impact of their decisions on the world in an immediate way.

(a) Sometimes the GM will still prep scenes in an emergent game, for important set pieces when the players are obviously building to something. However, it's best practice to not do this much, as prep will often subconsciously cause you as a GM to push things a certain way. Also, yes, authored games can allow some emergent scenes, but so long as the primary mode is going through authored content, it's still authored - if there's enough emergent scenes in a game, at some point you'll probably just stop prepping the authored ones because it's a waste of time. Then it's an authored game.

KorvinStarmast
2022-05-03, 10:15 AM
(a) Sometimes the GM will still prep scenes in an emergent game, for important set pieces when the players are obviously building to something. However, it's best practice to not do this much, as prep will often subconsciously cause you as a GM to push things a certain way. Also, yes, authored games can allow some emergent scenes, but so long as the primary mode is going through authored content, it's still authored - if there's enough emergent scenes in a game, at some point you'll probably just stop prepping the authored ones because it's a waste of time. Then it's an authored game. Clear as mud. :smallfrown:

Question: would you call Roll for Shoes an emergent game? (But it might not even apply to this conversation since I think it's gm-less structurally)

Easy e
2022-05-03, 10:34 AM
Well, I "feel" like the discussion of railroad vs sandbox is useless bickering over style choices.

Authored to me sounds almost (in a very simplified formulation) as planned, while emergent (again in a very simplified formulation) as unplanned. Using this very simplified formulations, it sounds to me like it is just another argument around style preferences and pointless categorization for the sake of fitting games into boxes.

At the end of the day, GMs need to do what it takes to keep their players engaged enough to keep playing. The rest is all highly subjective details.

PhoenixPhyre
2022-05-03, 10:54 AM
So, if we look at playing a game as:

1. scene starts
2. we figure out what happens
3. the GM figures out effects on the world
4. we determine what the next scene is
5. go to 1

then in most authored games, the majority of interesting gameplay happens in step 2, and step 4 primarily belongs to the GM. Step 3 is mostly predetermined. For emergent games, step 4 primarily belongs to the players, and is where a good chunk of the interesting gameplay is, because step 3 is not known in advance, in any way. Note that in an emergent game, step 4 isn't "which of the pre-prepared scenes do we want to do next".


By those standards, no possible game of D&D is ever emergent. Because among the DM's roles is exactly "Figure out the effects on the world" and "determine what the next scene is". Because those aren't separate things at all in D&D (or in any coherent game)--the answer to #3 determines literally what is next[1]. And isn't in the players' wheelhouse at all. And this isn't a matter of agency at all--you don't have agency in the consequences of your actions. Planning encounters is a necessary part of playing D&D, even if you're using random tables for everything. Because generating and choosing those random tables is an act of planning.

Unless the players have massive, explicit narrative powers (as in literally choosing what happens and how the world reacts to it) or unless there is no GM at all, step #3 is always in the DM's wheelhouse and always mandates the answer to #4 unless you all agree to skip some time. But even then, the initiative after #2 is always in the GM's wheelhouse. And note that even FATE and other games with narrative powers have this back and forth.

You're trying to chip off (what seems to me) to be a tiny tiny fraction of the game space, call it "emergent" and set it as a dichotomy against the rest of everything.

By your standards, I only do authored games. Yet my planning is almost identical to what you call planning for an emergent game. Which says to me there's something major missing in this definition. And makes the definition less than useful to me.

[1] Players may have say at a higher level, but they don't ever choose what scenes come about. Because scene generation in D&D and D&D-likes is a GM-side responsibility. Whether they make it up on the fly or whether they plan for it. Players play characters, the DM plays the world. That's the original social contract. The DM may ask "ok, what's next" at a high level. But the exact scene that plays? That's DM-side and always will be unless you radically restructure the game. At which point you're very much into narrative-game territory.

kyoryu
2022-05-03, 10:56 AM
Clear as mud. :smallfrown:

Not sure what's unclear about that. Let's take the "pure" examples.

1) authored - every scene is written in advance by the GM. No "interesting" things can happen outside of the authored scenes, interesting being defined as "moves the plot".

2) emergent - no scenes are written in advance by the GM, except for the initial scene.

That seems pretty clear, right?

So, let's take an emergent game. There's still a BBEG, and the players have been trying to track him down. The GM knows that they're probably going to reach him this session. Because of how they've taken the game so far, he pretty much knows where the BBEG is going to be confronted (because of player decisions, not his planning). He spends some time before the session working out what that will look like, to have some cool setpiece things in it. That's the only scene he writes in advance, and he's still willing to throw that away In this case, the experience is still primarily "we're coming up with the plans and executing on them".

Let's take a heavily authored game - and now the players do one thing that the GM decides is reasonable enough that it moves things forward, but back onto the "path". Sure, there's now been one emergent scene, but the experience is still primarily one of going through the pre-written content. The authored content is still primary. The emergent content is there, but it's not really what's driving the game - it's a diversion.

Now, for that authored game, maybe that GM starts becoming more and more comfortable with that, and allowing more of those scenes. At some point, that is such a driving force that he really stops authoring most of the game, except for maybe a few set pieces, and is willing to let those go - at that point the authored content is really just special pieces, but the emergent content is running the show.

I don't think it's a hard binary, but I do think there's a point in either direction at which one or the other becomes dominant, and changes the basic nature of the game.


Question: would you call Roll for Shoes an emergent game? (But it might not even apply to this conversation since I think it's gm-less structurally)

It's a system. Systems are neither emergent nor authored, though they may be written with one or the other in mind. (I'd argue modern D&D is written for authored games, Fate is mostly written for emergent games). That said, it certainly seems like that would do well for emergent games.

Tanarii
2022-05-03, 11:17 AM
Well, I "feel" like the discussion of railroad vs sandbox is useless bickering over style choices.
There's also the usual situation of some folks not understanding what player agency actually is, and thus what negating it looks like, and thus mis-using the word "railroad".

On the flip side, "sandbox" faces similar problems, although they tend to be more definitional problems than folks not knowing the definition.

For example, similar to "campaign", can "sandbox" even be applied to a game with single group of players/PCs? :smallamused:

--------

I don't really like the terms "authored" vs "emergent", because they imply "story". But "planned" vs "freeform" sounds pretty good to me.

kyoryu
2022-05-03, 11:26 AM
Authored to me sounds almost (in a very simplified formulation) as planned, while emergent (again in a very simplified formulation) as unplanned. Using this very simplified formulations, it sounds to me like it is just another argument around style preferences and pointless categorization for the sake of fitting games into boxes.

Sorta. Emergent games can have lots of planning - they just don't plan specific scenes.

I don't think it's pointless, as these are choices that lead to pretty different styles of play at the table. And that's useful to understand.


At the end of the day, GMs need to do what it takes to keep their players engaged enough to keep playing. The rest is all highly subjective details.

Sure. And understanding different styles and structures of play can help with that.


By those standards, no possible game of D&D is ever emergent. Because among the DM's roles is exactly "Figure out the effects on the world" and "determine what the next scene is". Because those aren't separate things at all in D&D (or in any coherent game)

Huh?

So, let's take a concrete example. Start of the game, players are tracking down some Bad Folks. Well, they get in a fight with them and it turns they have nasty weird critters where their tongues should be, and they're superhumanly strong and fast and tough. Ruh roh. They end up running from the fight, as they're overmatched.

Step 3: How does the world change? Well, the bad guys have seen the players, and have at least some understanding of who they are or what they look like. The bad guys know that their hideout is discovered. So, the next steps of the bad guys are pretty clear - move to a new hiding spot, and figure a way to get the heat off of them, either by tracking down the PCs, or finding a way to apply pressure to them, or just getting out of Dodge (the last one wasn't an option Because Reasons).

Step 4: What do the PCs do next? After retreating to their HQ, the PCs decide what they're going to do. They're smart enough to realize the bad guys have probably vacated their hideout, so they could go there and investigate. Since the critters are likely magical, maybe they could see if they can figure out what magic it was. Since the bad guys were operating as bandits, maybe they could start trying to figure out where stuff was getting fenced.

I've run multiple parties through this scenario. All of those options were used. The games completely diverged at that point. None of these were predetermined by me, or even planned.


--the answer to #3 determines literally what is next[1].

The answer to #3 informs the world state. It doesn't necessarily determine the next scene - unless the players are entirely reactive. Which is pretty common in authored games, to be fair.

AND TO BE SUPER CLEAR AUTHORED GAMES ARE FINE.


And isn't in the players' wheelhouse at all. And this isn't a matter of agency at all--you don't have agency in the consequences of your actions.

Correct! That's why step 3 is in the GM's wheelhouse in both examples. (If it's not, editing error and I'll fix it).


Planning encounters is a necessary part of playing D&D, even if you're using random tables for everything. Because generating and choosing those random tables is an act of planning.

Ehhhhh..... sorta.

First off, it's not planning that makes a game authored. Most games involve some level of planning, but the type differs greatly.

I'm also not sure that prepping generic-ish encounters or building blocks really qualifies. Again, those are things that may or may not be used, and certainly where they're used and the results of them being used will have different impacts.

I've even run D&D without pre-planned encounters. What I have done, in those circumstances, was pre-select a number of combatants for use by various factions, and build on the fly from those.


Unless the players have massive, explicit narrative powers (as in literally choosing what happens and how the world reacts to it) or unless there is no GM at all, step #3 is always in the DM's wheelhouse and always mandates the answer to #4

I've given an example of what I mean by this distinction. I'd like to point the conversation at that conceptually, rather than getting into legalese about the words I use, if that works for you?


You're trying to chip off (what seems to me) to be a tiny tiny fraction of the game space, call it "emergent" and set it as a dichotomy against the rest of everything.

So, a couple possibilities, because emergent games are the vast majority of gaming I do.

1) we're miscommunicating
2) your experience is primarily in authored games. If the majority of your play is D&D, this is not unlikely.


By your standards, I only do authored games. Yet my planning is almost identical to what you call planning for an emergent game. Which says to me there's something major missing in this definition. And makes the definition less than useful to me.

In any game you typically figure out NPCs, etc. I think you do plan them slightly differently for emergent games

It would be interesting to compare what prep we might do for different games. My prep tends to be slightly front-loaded (but usually only a few hours at most), as the game mostly "runs itself" after initial setup.


[1] Players may have say at a higher level, but they don't ever choose what scenes come about. Because scene generation in D&D and D&D-likes is a GM-side responsibility. Whether they make it up on the fly or whether they plan for it. Players play characters, the DM plays the world. That's the original social contract. The DM may ask "ok, what's next" at a high level. But the exact scene that plays? That's DM-side and always will be unless you radically restructure the game. At which point you're very much into narrative-game territory.

If you're assuming good faith on the part of the GM, and that they're actually responding to your plans and allowing your choices to have an impact, I think that's sufficient.

Otherwise you're deep into Quantum Ogre and "the GM can veto anything so there's no actual agency" territory. And if the GM is actively manipulating your choices to get you to a predetermined path, yeah, that's where "railroading" gets thrown about, and with good reason.


There's also the usual situation of some folks not understanding what player agency actually is, and thus what negating it looks like, and thus mis-using the word "railroad".

On the flip side, "sandbox" faces similar problems, although they tend to be more definitional problems than folks not knowing the definition.

Sandbox carries a lot of baggage that "nothing can really happen except what the PCs decide" and "there are no goals" etc. These are not necessarily true of "emergent" games. A common game structure for me (on both sides of the screen) is "we're playing a game about <xyz>, here's a problem, go solve it." That's not a "pure" sandbox, but is far closer to a sandbox than it is a linear game - and has that fundamental quality of "we don't know what's going to happen".


I don't really like the terms "authored" vs "emergent", because they imply "story". But "planned" vs "freeform" sounds pretty good to me.

The problem is that "freeform" games can include a lot of planning. In a lot of cases, I do hours of planning for a game - but I just don't plan specific scenes.

I'm not sure why "emergent" implies a story - it just means that the state evolves from the original state as opposed to being explicitly set. I think it captures what I'm going for fairly well - mostly because it talks about the actual positive thing I'm looking for rather than something like "freeform" which really talks about the lack of another property.

I can see that argument for "authored" however. "Curated", maybe?

At any rate, I think you understand what I'm talking about, mostly, and I'm more than open to alternative terms.

BRC
2022-05-03, 11:36 AM
I feel like while the term "Emergent" is good, "Authored" is tripping people up, because it implies something far more wide-ranging than I think Kyoru is intending.


For example:


The PC's get into a fight with agents of the Evil Cult. However, one of the Cultist Lieutenants escapes.

The GM says "Alright, because that Cultist escaped, he will have reported back to the Cult Leadership about the PCs, and the Cult is going to try to have them killed".

So the GM then writes (Authors) A scene for the following session where cult assassins storm the Inn where the PC's are staying at night and try to kill them.

By my understanding of what Kyoryu is saying, this would pretty firmly fall under the category of an "Emergent" game. However, since it involves the GM pre-planning a scenario (The assassination attempt), it is technically speaking "Authored", even if it isn't Authored by the proposed Authored/Emergent system.

"Authored" implies "The GM writes stuff down ahead of time". It sounds like Kyoru is talking about something far more limited for the definition of Authored (Planned at the Macro level maybe?)

PhoenixPhyre
2022-05-03, 11:53 AM
I feel like while the term "Emergent" is good, "Authored" is tripping people up, because it implies something far more wide-ranging than I think Kyoru is intending.


For example:


The PC's get into a fight with agents of the Evil Cult. However, one of the Cultist Lieutenants escapes.

The GM says "Alright, because that Cultist escaped, he will have reported back to the Cult Leadership about the PCs, and the Cult is going to try to have them killed".

So the GM then writes (Authors) A scene for the following session where cult assassins storm the Inn where the PC's are staying at night and try to kill them.

By my understanding of what Kyoryu is saying, this would pretty firmly fall under the category of an "Emergent" game. However, since it involves the GM pre-planning a scenario (The assassination attempt), it is technically speaking "Authored", even if it isn't Authored by the proposed Authored/Emergent system.

"Authored" implies "The GM writes stuff down ahead of time". It sounds like Kyoru is talking about something far more limited for the definition of Authored (Planned at the Macro level maybe?)

Right. And that's the root of my misunderstanding(?) about the proposed dichotomy.

1. Scene (however it came about): Fight with cultists.
2. Resolution: One escapes, rest killed/captured.
3. How world reacts: escaped guy runs to cult leadership, who try to set up ambush.
4. What scene comes next: Depends entirely on details from #3. Including "how much time elapses until the next on-camera scene" and "how far away is cult leadership" and "how long does the party plan on staying at the inn" and lots of other things. Of this, only a tiny fraction (how long the party stays at the inn) is player-side. The rest is entirely part of #3--how long does it take the cultist to report in and the leadership to plan/prep an ambush. And in many cases, even if the party packs up and moves immediately (so that you can't do a "retaliation assassins burst in" scene immediately next), all that does is put the "retaliation" scene into the queue. And with how elastic time is and with many of the possible world-states that lead there (ie the #3 from all the previous scenes), it's very possible (without stretching credulity) that the retaliation scene is the next non-handwaved thing in queue.

Is this authored? Emergent? Meh. For me, it's somewhere very far from either pole, having properties of both. Some elements are known in advance and are entirely DM side, others are entirely player side. I don't really see a bit inherent wall between the micro/scene layer and the macro/sequencing of scenes layer. They bleed into each other and inform each other very tightly. The micro flows from the macro and vice versa.

Yes, in the extreme cases (running Curse of the Azure Bonds by the book), you approach the poles. But in no case are the players deciding what comes next unless they have literal meta-game/meta-narrative powers. At most they're selecting which sheaf of probabilities are being played out next (making a constrained choice from a set of known[1] states), which was explicitly said to be authored. But certainly doesn't feel like it.

So the dichotomy is, for me, the problem. Take that away and accept that there's lots of room between the two where the majority of every game I've every played (regardless of the system, including no system at all) exists. Somewhere in the mushy middle. Which makes authored vs emergent more of an attribute games (or even scenes) can have in varying amounts, not a fixed set of buckets to categorize things.

[1] They have to be known at the time they're played unless you're procedurally generating everything. And that's just as much planning as is having a fixed narrative. But at the same time, the outcomes are not inherently fixed and the world state at T = N + 1 depends causally on the events at T = N and before. For me, the bad things happen when the world state at T = N + 1 does not depend at all on the events at T = M (M <= N). But there's delay--doing something now may cause something to happen later, with time in between. Those are still causally connected.

Easy e
2022-05-03, 12:06 PM
Sure. And understanding different styles and structures of play can help with that.


In theory yes.

However, in practice it leads to naval-gazing instead of actually testing and experimenting in play and with the intended audience. AKA Learning by doing.

We need more GMs GMing, and less talking about GMing.

Hytheter
2022-05-03, 12:13 PM
Step 4: What do the PCs do next? After retreating to their HQ, the PCs decide what they're going to do. They're smart enough to realize the bad guys have probably vacated their hideout, so they could go there and investigate. Since the critters are likely magical, maybe they could see if they can figure out what magic it was. Since the bad guys were operating as bandits, maybe they could start trying to figure out where stuff was getting fenced.


I think there's just a disconnect in the way you and Phoenix are mentally framing things. You're saying that by choosing what to do next, the players are performing Step 4 and determining what the next scene is. But by their reckoning (or rather, my guess thereof) the decision to act is part of Step 2, the stuff that happens, with their arrival at the next scene being adjudicated by the GM in accordance with steps 3 and 4.

I can understand both perspectives, but I think the fundamental sticking point is that even if the players are acting towards what they want to happen next, it's still up to the GM to determine what actually happens next. For example, the players might decide they want to investigate the bandit's hideout, and thus set out to travel there - but that doesn't necessarily mean that the next scene will be them arriving at the bandit's hideout. There might be other scenes on the way, obstacles or interlopers that delay the players. The players' choices may determine the scope of possibility for the next scene, but it's the GM who determines what possibilities actually manifest as a result.

BRC
2022-05-03, 12:14 PM
Right. And that's the root of my misunderstanding(?) about the proposed dichotomy.

1. Scene (however it came about): Fight with cultists.
2. Resolution: One escapes, rest killed/captured.
3. How world reacts: escaped guy runs to cult leadership, who try to set up ambush.
4. What scene comes next: Depends entirely on details from #3. Including "how much time elapses until the next on-camera scene" and "how far away is cult leadership" and "how long does the party plan on staying at the inn" and lots of other things. Of this, only a tiny fraction (how long the party stays at the inn) is player-side. The rest is entirely part of #3--how long does it take the cultist to report in and the leadership to plan/prep an ambush. And in many cases, even if the party packs up and moves immediately (so that you can't do a "retaliation assassins burst in" scene immediately next), all that does is put the "retaliation" scene into the queue. And with how elastic time is and with many of the possible world-states that lead there (ie the #3 from all the previous scenes), it's very possible (without stretching credulity) that the retaliation scene is the next non-handwaved thing in queue.

Is this authored? Emergent? Meh. For me, it's somewhere very far from either pole, having properties of both. Some elements are known in advance and are entirely DM side, others are entirely player side. I don't really see a bit inherent wall between the micro/scene layer and the macro/sequencing of scenes layer. They bleed into each other and inform each other very tightly. The micro flows from the macro and vice versa.

Yes, in the extreme cases (running Curse of the Azure Bonds by the book), you approach the poles. But in no case are the players deciding what comes next unless they have literal meta-game/meta-narrative powers. At most they're selecting which sheaf of probabilities are being played out next (making a constrained choice from a set of known[1] states), which was explicitly said to be authored. But certainly doesn't feel like it.

So the dichotomy is, for me, the problem. Take that away and accept that there's lots of room between the two where the majority of every game I've every played (regardless of the system, including no system at all) exists. Somewhere in the mushy middle. Which makes authored vs emergent more of an attribute games (or even scenes) can have in varying amounts, not a fixed set of buckets to categorize things.

[1] They have to be known at the time they're played unless you're procedurally generating everything. And that's just as much planning as is having a fixed narrative. But at the same time, the outcomes are not inherently fixed and the world state at T = N + 1 depends causally on the events at T = N and before. For me, the bad things happen when the world state at T = N + 1 does not depend at all on the events at T = M (M <= N). But there's delay--doing something now may cause something to happen later, with time in between. Those are still causally connected.

I think the issue is that Kyoru is trying to propose a Dichotomy using two terms that are not mutually exclusive in common definition.


The scenario with the cult assassins is both Emergent and Authored by common definition. By Kyoryu's definition, it is Emergent and not Authored.


I don't have ideal terms here, but I feel like the actual dichotomy here isn't about GMing style, it's about the philsophical relationship between the game and the story. Is the game viewed as a method for Telling a Story, or Writing a Story.

If the game is a method of Telling a Story, than the role of the players is that of Audience. Not necessarily a passive audience (Like in the classic "Shut up and roll dice when I tell you to" Absolute Railroad), but their primary narrative function is to receive and enjoy the story being told.

This approach can exist in a game with lots of player agency at the micro level, because what really matters here isn't "How much control do the characters have" but "What parts of the story does the GM feel is important to be told".

If the GM wants to tell the story of "Go to Pirate Island, Spooky Vampire Castle, Volcano Temple, and Magic Flying City to get the Macguffins and save the world", and has cool stories they want told in those 4 locations, they can tell that big story, and those smaller stories, while still giving the PC's plenty of freedom over what they do in those four locations, so long as "What they do" ends up with "Gets the Relic", and that's the sort of thing that can be covered by player buy-in at the campaign start. But the GM's approach is still that they have this cool story they want to tell their friends, and the Game is their chosen medium for doing so. The bits that they let their friends decide, the bits about HOW the Heroes get through the Volcano Temple, are not integral to the Story the DM wanted to tell. What they want to tell is the story of the Volcano temple, why it was built, the Fire Priests that run it, how they got the Relic, ect. They get to tell that story.


If the game is a method for Writing the Story, then the players are co-authors. This game can still have plenty of pre-planned structure, but what's there is built as scaffolding, rather than script. Easy to be taken down and rebuilt if needed.

NichG
2022-05-03, 12:17 PM
I think the abstraction into scenes is causing a misunderstanding here, since for some posters it's implying that all player interaction with the game happens during scenes and never between.

I read Kyoryu's step #4 as potentially including decisions such as 'what do the characters do next at the macro level?'.

So let's say the GM decides that the enemies are intending to retaliate. If the players say 'we return to town and sleep at the inn', then the next 'scene' happens at the inn. If the players say 'we return to town and scry on our enemy' then the next scene would instead be e.g. seeing the planning for the retaliatory strike. If the players say 'let's press our advantage and follow the lieutenant' then the next scene is at the enemy base. If the players say 'I'm done with adventuring here, let's Plane Shift to Elysium for a holiday', ...

In one reading, these decisions are made in #2 before #3 is resolved. In another reading these are macro decisions made in #4 that can depend on the visible parts of what was decided in #3.

KorvinStarmast
2022-05-03, 01:22 PM
Using this very simplified formulations, it sounds to me like it is just another argument around style preferences and pointless categorization for the sake of fitting games into boxes. yes, but I think the OP is trying to find a better set of terms to describe something.

I don't think it's a hard binary Neither did I, nor do I.

But you pushed back on our responses as regards this is a spectrum, or a continuum, by telling me your experience placed things in boxes, which came off (to me) as the kind of binary / category smashing that I find troubling with those other terms as well.

That said, it certainly seems like that would do well for emergent games.
OK, we are not discussing things at system level, but are looking into how a given game plays out. Thanks for making that scope (at least your intended scope) clearer to me.

But "planned" vs "freeform" sounds pretty good to me. *prepares for the next bun fight over terms*

In theory yes. However, in practice it leads to naval-gazing instead of actually testing and experimenting in play and with the intended audience. AKA Learning by doing. We need more GMs GMing, and less talking about GMing. Amen, Deacon!

Tanarii
2022-05-03, 03:35 PM
The problem is that "freeform" games can include a lot of planning. In a lot of cases, I do hours of planning for a game - but I just don't plan specific scenes.Not by what I mean by freeform, I'm using it to mean "winging it". But an open world certainly can. It actually takes more planning than "linear", not less. Unless you freeform creation of content in response to player actions on an as-needed basis. IMO freeform is a whole thing of its own. As is procedurally generated.


I'm not sure why "emergent" implies a story - it just means that the state evolves from the original state as opposed to being explicitly set. I think it captures what I'm going for fairly well - mostly because it talks about the actual positive thing I'm looking for rather than something like "freeform" which really talks about the lack of another property.

I can see that argument for "authored" however. "Curated", maybe?Probably because it's side by side with "authored", and me being used to see "emergent storytelling" in discussions about RPGs and storytelling.


At any rate, I think you understand what I'm talking about, mostly, and I'm more than open to alternative terms.I think I missed a piece about emergent, given my jumping to free form. :smallamused:

OldTrees1
2022-05-03, 05:01 PM
I've pretty much abandoned this thread since it's turned into the usual railroad discussion.

Anyway.

To me, divergent sounds authored.

And emergent isn't, fundamentally, about what order you go through things in. It's about how the scenes come about.

I still maintain there's a strong separation, even if not entirely a binary. Because at the end of the day, prep for an emergent game is very different than for an authored game. For an emergent game, I might plan NPCs, some locations, their agendas, etc. The one thing I do not prep is individual scenes/encounters. However, prepping individual scenes/encounters is a large part of prepping an authored scenario.

What about planning an event?

Consider an Elder Evil of Ice and Snow emerging.
Emergent: Some NPCs have an agenda to unleash the Elder Evil. Plan their agenda.
Authored: The PCs will witness the Elder Evil emerging. Plan the encounter.
In between?: The Elder Evil will emerge but where will the PCs be? Plan for how the event works so you are ready to adjudicate what happens wherever the PCs are. When you discover the PCs will be tending a bar many miles away, then you will know it will be some persistent weather challenges as a backdrop to the karaoke night instead of a fight in the freezing cold.

I think my in between example is "a bit" skewed towards Emergent, but the GM did author the emergence of the Elder Evil instead of it too being emergent.

I do agree that the emergent game plays very different from an authored game. I think it is a gradual change but a gradual change over a long continuum will result in a large difference.

PhoenixPhyre
2022-05-03, 05:15 PM
It might make more sense (but only to me?) if we think of these as mindsets the people involved can be in rather than anything about the game directly. Although they are expressed in the game, its scenes, etc, what they really express are differences in how people approach playing. And, in my experience, are prone to wax and wane in importance as campaigns progress.

It's fundamentally, it seems, more about who has the initiative in pushing things along. Not forward, because that defines that there is such a direction. But who is responsible right now for ensuring there is a next scene at all, let alone what it contains. Or who is responsible for deciding "what the campaign is about" (Super-Macro scale). Or "what is the next action taken by character X" (super-micro scale).

The Authored mindset is (very roughly) "the DM is primarily, if not exclusively, responsible for that. Players are responsible for different things." This is the "there is a story being recounted" (to some degree) mindset.

The Emergent mindset is (very roughly) "The players are primarily, if not exclusively, responsible for that. The DM mostly just acts as the responsible party for the NPCs/world + game engine. If at all."

I've found that some times, the players take the bit and run with the narrative. Other times, I'll have a "great idea" and throw in a contribution or take command of a sequence of scenes. In other groups, they want me to handle most of it and occasionally throw in an idea/push a scene. And it's not constant over time even within a campaign. Some pieces are "on rails" because that's what they want; other pieces are all over the place because that's what they want.

NichG
2022-05-03, 05:21 PM
It might make more sense (but only to me?) if we think of these as mindsets the people involved can be in rather than anything about the game directly. Although they are expressed in the game, its scenes, etc, what they really express are differences in how people approach playing. And, in my experience, are prone to wax and wane in importance as campaigns progress.

It's fundamentally, it seems, more about who has the initiative in pushing things along. Not forward, because that defines that there is such a direction. But who is responsible right now for ensuring there is a next scene at all, let alone what it contains. Or who is responsible for deciding "what the campaign is about" (Super-Macro scale). Or "what is the next action taken by character X" (super-micro scale).

The Authored mindset is (very roughly) "the DM is primarily, if not exclusively, responsible for that. Players are responsible for different things." This is the "there is a story being recounted" (to some degree) mindset.

The Emergent mindset is (very roughly) "The players are primarily, if not exclusively, responsible for that. The DM mostly just acts as the responsible party for the NPCs/world + game engine. If at all."

I've found that some times, the players take the bit and run with the narrative. Other times, I'll have a "great idea" and throw in a contribution or take command of a sequence of scenes. In other groups, they want me to handle most of it and occasionally throw in an idea/push a scene. And it's not constant over time even within a campaign. Some pieces are "on rails" because that's what they want; other pieces are all over the place because that's what they want.

I think talking about mindsets makes sense, but I guess I'd disagree that these are the particular mindsets exactly...

I'm thinking back to how Microscope describes that it should go. There is a lot of text basically exhorting players to 'when it's your turn to detail something, just decide - don't talk about it ahead of time or negotiate it with the other players or discuss what would be better, pick something then and there and say it'. That strikes me as kind of core to the emergent mindset, where rather than the group focusing on predicting or planning what might happen or what's likely to happen in the future before deciding what to present or what actions to take in the present, the group focuses on 'here's the scenario, lets try to be as unbiased as possible ahead of time about what might happen and react to events as they occur'

So I could see an authorial mindset applying to players (in fact, it might be a pet peeve of mine!) when they come to a campaign with a character planned out over 20 levels and have pre-determined all of the RP reasons for those choices and so on.

PhoenixPhyre
2022-05-03, 06:12 PM
I think talking about mindsets makes sense, but I guess I'd disagree that these are the particular mindsets exactly...

I'm thinking back to how Microscope describes that it should go. There is a lot of text basically exhorting players to 'when it's your turn to detail something, just decide - don't talk about it ahead of time or negotiate it with the other players or discuss what would be better, pick something then and there and say it'. That strikes me as kind of core to the emergent mindset, where rather than the group focusing on predicting or planning what might happen or what's likely to happen in the future before deciding what to present or what actions to take in the present, the group focuses on 'here's the scenario, lets try to be as unbiased as possible ahead of time about what might happen and react to events as they occur'

So I could see an authorial mindset applying to players (in fact, it might be a pet peeve of mine!) when they come to a campaign with a character planned out over 20 levels and have pre-determined all of the RP reasons for those choices and so on.

I was trying to keep it to the "GM contra player" idea of "who generates content".

But yeah, I probably don't have the best phrasing. It's more about "who's holding the progress-the-narrative ball right now". Sometimes that's the players. Sometimes that's the DM. And the ball might be in different hands at different meta-scopes (Macro vs micro, etc). And people may like the ball to be basically entirely in the DM's court at the Super-Macro level but completely in their court at the Super-Micro, with some variation in between.

Edit: I agree with the frustration at having pre-written, set-in-stone "builds" (either mechanically or personality/backstory or both). For me, figuring out what's going to happen is most of the fun. Even as a DM. I tend to sit in the Emergent mindset at many levels, although I'll grab the reins if they're let fall. Oddly, looking backward at a campaign or a character, things look really pre-determined. It looks like I had a plan all along and was just leading people through it. Despite usually hitting Saturday afternoon and not really having a clue how things will unfold. Playing online means I need to make maps ahead of time which does impose some constraints, but my "mind vision" and actual gameplay are...quite different. Because things come out of my mouth and I'm like "ok, let's run with that".



Different game systems have different "natural" set-points. "Traditional" games (aka D&D & D&D-likes) tend to put the ball more heavily into the DM's court at the macro-plus scopes but leave the micro/super-micro largely up to the players (with variation on all sides). Microscope doesn't even have that distinction at all--everyone is simultaneously the DM and the player. Games with more narrative tools or wiwth a different attitude (PbtA generally?) puts more of the ball in the players' hands at more of the levels. But these are just defaults--you can play D&D with a very "Emergent" mindset on all parties, although it takes a bit more work in some ways (and less in others). I'm not sure if you can GM a PbtA game in a very "Authored" mindset--I've heard that there is a really strong stance against that.

But the key is that players and DM alike must have a meeting of the minds as to what mindset they're in. Because if both sides are fighting over the ball, bad things happen. Consider the four "pure" corner cases:
* DM is Emergent, Players are Emergent. Great. No issues.
* DM is Emergent, Players are Authored. Bad things. Featureless white room (in the pathological case). The DM is expecting the players to make decisions and seek things out, but they're expecting the DM to lead them to adventure. Frustration ensues. Neither side wants the ball.
* DM is Authored, Players are Authored. Great. The players know they've signed up for the amusement park ride and settle in with popcorn. In one sense, this is the "TTRPG as JRPG" style.
* DM is Authored, Players are Emergent. Bad things. Both sides want the ball. And so battles commence, with the DM trying to force the players back onto "the path" (even if he only decided what that was a few minutes ago[1]) and the players straining to escape the "rails".

And this disagreement can happen at many different scopes.

Cheesegear
2022-05-04, 12:07 AM
Some pieces are "on rails" because that's what they want; other pieces are all over the place because that's what they want.

DM On rails: You start in a town,
DM Emergent: What are you looking for, what do you want? Why are you here?

Player 1 Emergent: I want to go to the tavern, that's where all the cool kids hang out.

DM on rails: Too easy. Here's the tavern I have prepared, the owner, the waitress, and several NPCs in the room. You thought you were going to surprise me by trying to go to a tavern!? Please. Taverns are a trope. Of course I already have one, and it's all filled out...

Player 2 Emergent: I'm sick of carrying all this **** around. I want to find someone who will sell me a donkey. I'll head to the tavern after I do some horse-trading.

DM Emergent: ...At level 1? Do you have the- Oh right, rich Background, you have a lot of cash. Uhh...Yes. Old Man Jenkins has been through the market earlier this morning trying to offload his mule. He's at this...Umm...Farm. About a mile outside of town.
*DM starts hastily writing down Old Man Jenkins, his wife, three dead sons, his crops took the blight so now he's trying to sell his donkey...*

Player 3 Rails: I'm looking for secrets about my spooky backstory that I told you about. Remember? Otherwise I head to the tavern.

DM on Rails: ...No. If you want special secrets about your spooky backstory you're going to need to be really specific about who you're asking. You wont be able to ask Joe Idiot on the street about where to find special secrets about your spooky backstory. Try again by talking to a real NPC.

Player 4 on Rails: I want to find a Druid, 'cause I have a thing where I want to multi-class later.

DM Emergent: Umm...Sure. No. There's no Druid here. The people in the Town get all their medicines from the wise woman in the next town over. She...Uhh...Travels here every other week. So you can't talk to her now. But she'll be here, soon. In...Uhh...*rolls 1d6*...That many days.
*Starts writing stuff for a Druid*

Player 4 Emergent: ...In that case I'd like to sit in the market square, and play my pipes, until something interesting happens.

DM Emergent: ...But...But you're the PC. You're supposed to look for something interesting, not just wait for it to happen.

Player 4 Emergent: ...Nah, I'm good.

DM back on the rails: Okay, so in the tavern...

Satinavian
2022-05-04, 01:44 AM
Now, for that authored game, maybe that GM starts becoming more and more comfortable with that, and allowing more of those scenes. At some point, that is such a driving force that he really stops authoring most of the game, except for maybe a few set pieces, and is willing to let those go - at that point the authored content is really just special pieces, but the emergent content is running the show.

I don't think it's a hard binary, but I do think there's a point in either direction at which one or the other becomes dominant, and changes the basic nature of the game.

I still disgree with your turning point instead of continuum, but that is not really that important.

But now you speak of a new interesting development. A perceived tendency for GMs.


I would say, yes, most GMs starting with heavily authored games tend to drift further to emerging ones. Simply because the stuff they can easily and confidently handle on the spot increases with experience and system mastery. They still might have ideas about scenes based on inspiration, but less and less of that needs actually prior work for the details and rule implications as those come naturally. It would be a waste of time to prepare that. Time better spent on background, worldbuilding etc.
I have actually seen GMs acknowledge that and (without promting) telling players there yould be more railroading when they were running a system they were less familiar with because they need to prepare more and can't come up e.g. with fitting NPC stats on the spot.

But i also have seen a reverse trend for GMs in emergent games. Where once people prepared a full sandbox of stuff to engage with, it became less with time. There is "Ah, I don't flesh that out, the players won't go for this anyway as i know them" and "Oh, i don't need to prepare bog standard village nr. 3, i will wing it if they go there" and in the end less and less of the map has real substance behind and what is left, is what the GM felt like it cool and interesting which often involves specific imagined scenes or even boils down to specific paths events the GM thinks his players would most likely take when presented with the situation.

Of course not everyone changes along those lines.



In theory yes.

However, in practice it leads to naval-gazing instead of actually testing and experimenting in play and with the intended audience. AKA Learning by doing.

We need more GMs GMing, and less talking about GMing.
IME the amount of navel gazing and exchange with other DMs does not lower the time of actually running games for groups at all. If anything, talking about the game with others between sessions might help with writer block issues and keeping the interest up.

As for making more GMs, i always suggest people to go for rotating GMs more often. That way the people lacking it get more experience confidence running games and it helps to keep everyone on the same footing instead of putting GMs on some pedestral. It also helps against GM-burnout to have longer breaks.

Hytheter
2022-05-04, 02:28 AM
IME the amount of navel gazing and exchange with other DMs does not lower the time of actually running games for groups at all. If anything, talking about the game with others between sessions might help with writer block issues and keeping the interest up.

Yeah, personally, I don't hang around here instead of playing or GMing, but because those activities are not available to me and this is the next best thing. :smallbiggrin:


As for making more GMs, i always suggest people to go for rotating GMs more often. That way the people lacking it get more experience confidence running games and it helps to keep everyone on the same footing instead of putting GMs on some pedestral. It also helps against GM-burnout to have longer breaks.

This rings true. I play on a server that is essentially a large-scale rotating GM group in a consistent world and I enjoy it a lot, and it's certainly nice being able to GM when I want to instead of being locked into the role (though I do still GM more than I play, time zones are a bitch). I imagine that having a smaller tight-knit group but still rotating the GM would be a blast with the right people.

Satinavian
2022-05-04, 02:43 AM
Player 2 Emergent: I'm sick of carrying all this **** around. I want to find someone who will sell me a donkey. I'll head to the tavern after I do some horse-trading.

DM Emergent: ...At level 1? Do you have the- Oh right, rich Background, you have a lot of cash. Uhh...Yes. Old Man Jenkins has been through the market earlier this morning trying to offload his mule. He's at this...Umm...Farm. About a mile outside of town.
*DM starts hastily writing down Old Man Jenkins, his wife, three dead sons, his crops took the blight so now he's trying to sell his donkey...*
Why would you need a fully fleshed out NPC with backstory and family to buy a donkey ? Is it even remotely likely PC2 cares about Jenkins ?

If that would happen at my table, as a GM i would consider :
Do they use donkeys in this region/culture ?
Is the settlement big enough to reasonably get them at any time ?

So the answers would be more like
a) Ok, a donkey costs (looks up pricetable).
b) No donkey for sale atm in this hamlet. People point you to the townmarket 8 hours away.
c) Donkeys are rare here and cost double. If you remember the setting supplement, the common beasts of burden around are thorogens which you could buy for X.



Player 4 Emergent: ...In that case I'd like to sit in the market square, and play my pipes, until something interesting happens.

DM Emergent: ...But...But you're the PC. You're supposed to look for something interesting, not just wait for it to happen.

Player 4 Emergent: ...Nah, I'm good.That is indeed a problem i have had with static sandboxes in the past. If you get a bunch of reactive PCs or the PCs reach a pretty comfortable situation they don't want to change, the game can grind to a halt.

This is why, when i prepare for an emergent game, it won't be static. I will always have answers to "What happens when the PCs do nothing". That does not have to be a catastrophy or a lose situation all the time. Important is, that the situation changes and the PCs might do something different in response to it.

Also this does not have to be instantly. You could very well do timeskips when everything remains calm and samey for a longer period.

kyoryu
2022-05-04, 09:37 AM
It might make more sense (but only to me?) if we think of these as mindsets the people involved can be in rather than anything about the game directly. Although they are expressed in the game, its scenes, etc, what they really express are differences in how people approach playing. And, in my experience, are prone to wax and wane in importance as campaigns progress.

It's fundamentally, it seems, more about who has the initiative in pushing things along. Not forward, because that defines that there is such a direction. But who is responsible right now for ensuring there is a next scene at all, let alone what it contains. Or who is responsible for deciding "what the campaign is about" (Super-Macro scale). Or "what is the next action taken by character X" (super-micro scale).

The Authored mindset is (very roughly) "the DM is primarily, if not exclusively, responsible for that. Players are responsible for different things." This is the "there is a story being recounted" (to some degree) mindset.

The Emergent mindset is (very roughly) "The players are primarily, if not exclusively, responsible for that. The DM mostly just acts as the responsible party for the NPCs/world + game engine. If at all."

I've found that some times, the players take the bit and run with the narrative. Other times, I'll have a "great idea" and throw in a contribution or take command of a sequence of scenes. In other groups, they want me to handle most of it and occasionally throw in an idea/push a scene. And it's not constant over time even within a campaign. Some pieces are "on rails" because that's what they want; other pieces are all over the place because that's what they want.

This is pretty close, yes.

The GM can still have a lot of responsibility, though. As I said, in games I run, I do a reasonable amount of prep, and it's in no way a "static sandbox" where nothing happens unless the players initiate it. "Here's a problem, you decide what to do about it" is a common way of running emergent games (where usually it's best to get buy-in to the problem at a player-level rather than a character level).


That is indeed a problem i have had with static sandboxes in the past. If you get a bunch of reactive PCs or the PCs reach a pretty comfortable situation they don't want to change, the game can grind to a halt.

This is why, when i prepare for an emergent game, it won't be static. I will always have answers to "What happens when the PCs do nothing". That does not have to be a catastrophy or a lose situation all the time. Important is, that the situation changes and the PCs might do something different in response to it.

Also this does not have to be instantly. You could very well do timeskips when everything remains calm and samey for a longer period.

This is why I don't like "static sandboxes" in most cases, and why I think that though there are people that do like them, they're moderately niche. This "well, players just stare at their navels" seems to be a bit of a common strawman, with the next bit being "therefore, we must have linear games!"

I guess another way of looking at it is (at least at the macro level) to look at who provides the problems and solutions:

Authored subtypes:
Linear game: GM provides the problem and the solution
GM-as-facilitator: players provide the problem, GM provides the solution

Emergent subtypes:
"Story sandbox": GM provides the problem, players provide the solution
"Static sandbox": players provide the problem and the solution

Cheesegear
2022-05-04, 10:40 AM
Why would you need a fully fleshed out NPC with backstory and family to buy a donkey?

*Points to the thread*


Is it even remotely likely PC2 cares about Jenkins?

That depends on the DM's characterisation of Old Man Jenkins. Hell, his three dead sons could make an appearance later. Published WotC modules have backstories for everyone, including shopkeepers. Literally every NPC the players ever meet is an opportunity for roleplaying. If the players engage, keep bringing them back. If they don't...Get rid of that NPC and never show them again. It's not rocket science.


So the answers would be more like
a) Ok, a donkey costs (looks up pricetable).
b) No donkey for sale atm in this hamlet. People point you to the townmarket 8 hours away.
c) Donkeys are rare here and cost double. If you remember the setting supplement, the common beasts of burden around are thorogens which you could buy for X.

The tone of this thread suggests that A and C are non-options if you're a 'good DM'.

OldTrees1
2022-05-04, 10:56 AM
The tone of this thread suggests that A and C are non-options if you're a 'good DM'.

I do not see that tone, are you sure?

In an emergent sandbox if the players choose to have their characters go find a donkey to buy, then I would respond with A, B or C depending on what makes sense for the locations the PCs happen to be at. If there are donkeys for sale at this hamlet, then A is an obvious response to the PC's choice. If there are donkeys for sale in this hamlet, but they are exotic beasts if burden in this area, then C makes a lot of sense as a response to the PC's choice. If there are no donkeys for sale in this hamlet but would be available in larger settlements, then B makes a lot of sense as a response to the PC's choice. If the PCs probe further into the seller, then I would elaborate further (this was the option you defaulted to).

In an authored linear game, the GM decided the PCs would go buy a donkey and the initial situation is one of A(they buy it here), B(they go to XYZ and buy it there), or C(they buy it here but it costs more).

truemane
2022-05-04, 11:29 AM
(I didn't real the whole thread)

What about 'emergent' vs 'pre-emergent' (or even 'premergent' - which has the additional benefit of being fun to say)?

I think it would be more helpful to define individual elements or features of a game as Emergent or Pre-emergent rather than trying to use those terms to describe an entire gaming style, or philosophy, or campaign (a descriptor of trait rather than state). The wider that net gets, the more the conversation gets tripped up on corner cases and/or feels like a moral or value judgement.

But to me, the enterprise-level dichotomy here isn't Railroading vs Agency. I think that's one result of the thing, not the thing itself. The map, not the land, as it were.

The core dichotomy is: What are the rules for? Are they meant to simulate or emulate?

Are the rules there to reasonably, validly, realistically (or, more precisely, with verisimilitude) simulate a stable, objective universe which the players move through and act on? Or, are they meant to emulate a specific kind of experience, even if that experience isn't realistic?

(and I'm including the DM in the term 'rules')

If we're doing a module is about solving a murder, for example. If we're simulating, then if the rules say the players missed a clue, they missed it. And maybe they don't solve the murder. If we're emulating, then the rules need to ensure the players find the right clues, regardless of what happens.

It seems to me that, when we fight about railroading or agency, what we're really fighting about is what are the rules actually for? That's where the real emotions and value judgements live.

Easy e
2022-05-04, 11:31 AM
The mindsets narrative makes more sense, and I often see it referred to as "sharing the spotlight".

Often times, this term only applies to players; but in practice I see it apply to GMs and players as well. Sometimes, it is up to the GM to be in the spotlight, and other times the various players. This is a give-and-take that is organic at the table though. All players (GM and Character drivers) should be looking for when to shift that spotlight around and when to hold onto it.

The Mindsets makes more sense to me as I have never seen a pure Authored or a pure Emergent game in action and I have played plenty of games of various systems. I have seen more of the "spotlight shifting" between GM and players though based on the needs of the table at the time as it fluctuates between authored and emergent sections.

Tanarii
2022-05-04, 12:10 PM
If we're emulating, then the rules need to ensure the players find the right clues, regardless of what happens.
Why? I was trying to follow your point about the difference between simulating vs emulating (which is an age old contrast IMX), but then you lost me when you threw this out as an example of a requirement of emulating.

kyoryu
2022-05-04, 12:19 PM
But to me, the enterprise-level dichotomy here isn't Railroading vs Agency. I think that's one result of the thing, not the thing itself. The map, not the land, as it were.

I actually disagree with the idea of a core dichotomy/top level split at all. They end up being much less useful and create more issues.

In this case, what I'm really proposing is two contrary descriptors.


The core dichotomy is: What are the rules for? Are they meant to simulate or emulate?

Are the rules there to reasonably, validly, realistically (or, more precisely, with verisimilitude) simulate a stable, objective universe which the players move through and act on? Or, are they meant to emulate a specific kind of experience, even if that experience isn't realistic?

Oh, hi, GNS/GDS.

Again, those are useful distinctions, but I don't think they're a core-level categorization tool.

KorvinStarmast
2022-05-04, 12:27 PM
It seems to me that, when we fight about railroading or agency, what we're really fighting about is what are the rules actually for? They are: for arguing about in the internet or, a tool set for creating a play experience.

I actually disagree with the idea of a core dichotomy/top level split at all. Your title has the conflict you are saying you don't want built right into it.
"Authored" vs. "Emergent" :smallconfused: That structure implies that they are in opposition.
(Perhaps we see here a case of inadvertently poisoning one's own well)

Quertus
2022-05-04, 01:10 PM
Besides the motivating example about why you might want to mix these structures, I think everything I said was about the order in which you go through, or can go through, scenes. kyoryu seemed to be trying to get at that* matter.

When you have one scene you it sits alone. But if you have two scenes are they ordered (A and then B), unordered (A and B, or B and A) or branching (A or B, but only one)? I'm still debating if optional (maybe A then B) is its own thing or not, it might be branching plus ordered where only one branch has a scene ((- or A) then B). And none of this is getting into any effects on scenes beyond when and if they are visited.

*

Confusion. Let's step back a pace.

Suppose you're about to go talk to the king, to try to get him to send his army to fight the Orcs.

That's the (intended) upcoming scene.

Now, there's "playing that scene straight", the way it was "written". But there's also the parallel universe where the Duke who was going to oppose you was murdered. Or the parallel universe where the Count who was going to help you has been maneuvered out of the city. Or the parallel universe where the "king" is actually your mind-controlled Doppleganger / Simulacrum / puppet.

The play through each of these scenes is different. The difficulty of each of these scenes is different. But are they different scenes, or the same scene?

I was a) taking them all to be the same scene; b) taking you to be discussing the ability to set up that difference between the variant scenes.

So... if the GM is gonna railroad the players into "the next scene IS talking to the king to (try to) get him to send his army", but allows the players the agency to setup the variables within that scene however they desire... a) is that what you're talking about; b) isn't that still "Authored" path?

kyoryu
2022-05-04, 01:14 PM
Your title has the conflict you are saying you don't want built right into it.
"Authored" vs. "Emergent" :smallconfused: That structure implies that they are in opposition.
(Perhaps we see here a case of inadvertently poisoning one's own well)

sigh

It seems like you're looking for reasons to argue here.

I'm saying those properties are opposed. Not that they are a top level categorical split.

IOW, my position is that things can be blue, or they can be red. I am not arguing that "blue things vs. red things" is a top-level split by which we should start categorizing.


I actually disagree with the idea of a core dichotomy/top level split at all. They end up being much less useful and create more issues.

In this case, what I'm really proposing is two contrary descriptors.

Descriptors are not categories. Think more like "tags".

So we've had two essential groups of tags proposed - authored/emergent and gamist/simulationist/dramatist. (I'll prefer GDS over GNS, kthx). While not arguing about the accuracy of either, these can exist in vairous combinations, along with other descriptors.

Authored and Simulationist (probably pretty rare)
Authored and Dramatist
Authored and Gamist

Emergent and Simulationist
Emergent and Dramatist
Emergent and Gamist (also probably rare)

I argue that neither of these groupings are a good top-level split for categorization, because any individual might place higher priority on one of those descriptors than the other set. Someone might say "I really like emergent play, regardless of GDS tag" and some people might say "I really like Dramatist play, regardless of whether it's emergent or authored".

(I'd guess based on observation that many tags are loosely correlated with each other - most simulationist folks tend to like more emergent games, and good gamist stuff seems a bit harder to do unless it's authored, as that kind of balance/design is kinda useful for good gamist play. There'd be other examples from other tag groups too, I'm sure)

PhoenixPhyre
2022-05-04, 01:25 PM
I'm saying those properties are opposed. Not that they are a top level categorical split.

IOW, my position is that things can be blue, or they can be red. I am not arguing that "blue things vs. red things" is a top-level split by which we should start categorizing.


And this is where I disagree. They exist simultaneously within every campaign in differing amounts at different levels and different times. And both exist in different people (or even within the same individual) except in extreme edge cases. And I'm not even sure that they're a complete set: Authored + Emergent == 1 is not definitional at this point. There may be other properties (or approaches) that are not included in either one.

They're manifestations of a single property (or my preference is to consider them approaches to that property), but they're not binary opposites. They describe one of many axes that are relevant to this particular thing. Effectively, they're a subset of "how do you share the content-creation arena between participants in this game." And it shifts and changes. So portraying them as opposed properties creates a lot of heat but not a lot of light. And using them to describe games (even at the "campaign played at this table at this time" meaning) is extremely over-inclusive, while not describing essential differences. A campaign may shift from dominantly having a single specific scope being created and iterated by the DM to being created and iterated by the players and back many times during the span of events. And different scopes may have different time-averages.

Quertus
2022-05-04, 01:45 PM
I have always used railroading as the GM warping the setting / rules of the game to stop the PCs from doing something.

It doesn't have to be a single path, or even a linear scenario.

There can be a thousand open doors, but if one of them is barred to the players, it is still a railroad. Assuming that the barricade is put there by DM FIAT and defended with paper thin excuses of course.


Agree? Disagree?

I think that's equivalent to the definition of "Railroading" that I use (anytime the GM changes/ignores game state / game physics to force or prevent a particular course of action or outcome, in opposition to player intent and the social contract). So, Agree?

But, more importantly, "railroading" is not actually in any way the topic of this thread. :smallwink:


I think the abstraction into scenes is causing a misunderstanding here, since for some posters it's implying that all player interaction with the game happens during scenes and never between.

I read Kyoryu's step #4 as potentially including decisions such as 'what do the characters do next at the macro level?'.

So let's say the GM decides that the enemies are intending to retaliate. If the players say 'we return to town and sleep at the inn', then the next 'scene' happens at the inn. If the players say 'we return to town and scry on our enemy' then the next scene would instead be e.g. seeing the planning for the retaliatory strike. If the players say 'let's press our advantage and follow the lieutenant' then the next scene is at the enemy base. If the players say 'I'm done with adventuring here, let's Plane Shift to Elysium for a holiday', ...

In one reading, these decisions are made in #2 before #3 is resolved. In another reading these are macro decisions made in #4 that can depend on the visible parts of what was decided in #3.

Dang. I think you're right. And I liked that simple list, too.


I was trying to keep it to the "GM contra player" idea of "who generates content".

But yeah, I probably don't have the best phrasing. It's more about "who's holding the progress-the-narrative ball right now". Sometimes that's the players. Sometimes that's the DM. And the ball might be in different hands at different meta-scopes (Macro vs micro, etc). And people may like the ball to be basically entirely in the DM's court at the Super-Macro level but completely in their court at the Super-Micro, with some variation in between.

Edit: I agree with the frustration at having pre-written, set-in-stone "builds" (either mechanically or personality/backstory or both). For me, figuring out what's going to happen is most of the fun. Even as a DM. I tend to sit in the Emergent mindset at many levels, although I'll grab the reins if they're let fall. Oddly, looking backward at a campaign or a character, things look really pre-determined. It looks like I had a plan all along and was just leading people through it. Despite usually hitting Saturday afternoon and not really having a clue how things will unfold. Playing online means I need to make maps ahead of time which does impose some constraints, but my "mind vision" and actual gameplay are...quite different. Because things come out of my mouth and I'm like "ok, let's run with that".



Different game systems have different "natural" set-points. "Traditional" games (aka D&D & D&D-likes) tend to put the ball more heavily into the DM's court at the macro-plus scopes but leave the micro/super-micro largely up to the players (with variation on all sides). Microscope doesn't even have that distinction at all--everyone is simultaneously the DM and the player. Games with more narrative tools or wiwth a different attitude (PbtA generally?) puts more of the ball in the players' hands at more of the levels. But these are just defaults--you can play D&D with a very "Emergent" mindset on all parties, although it takes a bit more work in some ways (and less in others). I'm not sure if you can GM a PbtA game in a very "Authored" mindset--I've heard that there is a really strong stance against that.

But the key is that players and DM alike must have a meeting of the minds as to what mindset they're in. Because if both sides are fighting over the ball, bad things happen. Consider the four "pure" corner cases:
* DM is Emergent, Players are Emergent. Great. No issues.
* DM is Emergent, Players are Authored. Bad things. Featureless white room (in the pathological case). The DM is expecting the players to make decisions and seek things out, but they're expecting the DM to lead them to adventure. Frustration ensues. Neither side wants the ball.
* DM is Authored, Players are Authored. Great. The players know they've signed up for the amusement park ride and settle in with popcorn. In one sense, this is the "TTRPG as JRPG" style.
* DM is Authored, Players are Emergent. Bad things. Both sides want the ball. And so battles commence, with the DM trying to force the players back onto "the path" (even if he only decided what that was a few minutes ago[1]) and the players straining to escape the "rails".

And this disagreement can happen at many different scopes.



This is pretty close, yes.

The GM can still have a lot of responsibility, though. As I said, in games I run, I do a reasonable amount of prep, and it's in no way a "static sandbox" where nothing happens unless the players initiate it. "Here's a problem, you decide what to do about it" is a common way of running emergent games (where usually it's best to get buy-in to the problem at a player-level rather than a character level).



This is why I don't like "static sandboxes" in most cases, and why I think that though there are people that do like them, they're moderately niche. This "well, players just stare at their navels" seems to be a bit of a common strawman, with the next bit being "therefore, we must have linear games!"

I guess another way of looking at it is (at least at the macro level) to look at who provides the problems and solutions:

Authored subtypes:
Linear game: GM provides the problem and the solution
GM-as-facilitator: players provide the problem, GM provides the solution

Emergent subtypes:
"Story sandbox": GM provides the problem, players provide the solution
"Static sandbox": players provide the problem and the solution


And this is where I disagree. They exist simultaneously within every campaign in differing amounts at different levels and different times. And both exist in different people (or even within the same individual) except in extreme edge cases. And I'm not even sure that they're a complete set: Authored + Emergent == 1 is not definitional at this point. There may be other properties (or approaches) that are not included in either one.

They're manifestations of a single property (or my preference is to consider them approaches to that property), but they're not binary opposites. They describe one of many axes that are relevant to this particular thing. Effectively, they're a subset of "how do you share the content-creation arena between participants in this game." And it shifts and changes. So portraying them as opposed properties creates a lot of heat but not a lot of light. And using them to describe games (even at the "campaign played at this table at this time" meaning) is extremely over-inclusive, while not describing essential differences. A campaign may shift from dominantly having a single specific scope being created and iterated by the DM to being created and iterated by the players and back many times during the span of events. And different scopes may have different time-averages.

I think I'm just getting more confused.

I thought that the big thing about "Authored" vs "Emergent" was "which scene comes next"; that, in Authored, the GM *knows* that certain scenes will happen, and can thus plan them out meticulously, and guarantee that they aren't wasting their time doing so for a scene that will never be seen. Whereas, in Emergent, the players' actions determine the story, which scenes come next, which scenes even happen at all.

Is there some non-stupid way to define these terms such that they aren't both mutually-exclusive and all-encompassing? I had kinda thought of that as a good litmus test for "did you define the terms reasonably" - is that wrong? I'm no longer sure which of the smart ways to define these terms is best, but if there's a valid way to define them such that they aren't all-encompassing, that would be important to know - it changes what we can say and assume before we've nailed down the finicky bits of the definitions.

Further, I'm wondering whether discussions of Authored vs Emergent pathing are... hmmm... superfluous if we were to adopt the micro/macro agency stuff. Is there anything in an Authored vs Emergent discussion that isn't covered by discussion of micro and macro agency? Anything that is easier to discuss in terms of Authored vs Emergent?

NichG
2022-05-04, 02:09 PM
I think I'm just getting more confused.

I thought that the big thing about "Authored" vs "Emergent" was "which scene comes next"; that, in Authored, the GM *knows* that certain scenes will happen, and can thus plan them out meticulously, and guarantee that they aren't wasting their time doing so for a scene that will never be seen. Whereas, in Emergent, the players' actions determine the story, which scenes come next, which scenes even happen at all.

Is there some non-stupid way to define these terms such that they aren't both mutually-exclusive and all-encompassing? I had kinda thought of that as a good litmus test for "did you define the terms reasonably" - is that wrong? I'm no longer sure which of the smart ways to define these terms is best, but if there's a valid way to define them such that they aren't all-encompassing, that would be important to know - it changes what we can say and assume before we've nailed down the finicky bits of the definitions.

Further, I'm wondering whether discussions of Authored vs Emergent pathing are... hmmm... superfluous if we were to adopt the micro/macro agency stuff. Is there anything in an Authored vs Emergent discussion that isn't covered by discussion of micro and macro agency? Anything that is easier to discuss in terms of Authored vs Emergent?

I still think the planned/unplanned dichotomy is the most significant new idea about this stuff (noting this is about the pre-planning of decisions about what will happen, not 'any form of game prep') The player vs GM control of direction doesn't seem particularly different than other older terminology, neither does any of the agency stuff.

But the idea that one might want a game where people intentionally avoid thinking about 'what is likely to happen' or 'what am I going to do' in advance is interesting, and it resonates with my experience that the gameplay of planning and then executing a plan feels fundamentally different than decision-making under surprise conditions.

I also like that in that framing, it's not a GM vs players thing - anyone at the table can contribute to an authored or emergent mindset. The paranoid divination wizard for example is an archetype that basically pushes (this sense of) authored mindset hard, requiring things to be predetermined far in advance of when they demand a reaction. So taking it that way, you can apply this to GM-less games too. I mentioned Microscope before as pushing what I felt was characteristic of emergence, but we could design an authored mindset version of that game that does encourage discussion and negotiation in advance before players define their events and scenes and such.

Satinavian
2022-05-04, 02:40 PM
*Points to the thread*

That depends on the DM's characterisation of Old Man Jenkins. Hell, his three dead sons could make an appearance later. Published WotC modules have backstories for everyone, including shopkeepers. Literally every NPC the players ever meet is an opportunity for roleplaying. If the players engage, keep bringing them back. If they don't...Get rid of that NPC and never show them again. It's not rocket science.
Maybe i have played a couple of decades too long, but RPG shopping holds about as much excitement and thrill for me as real life shopping. And i am generally not more interested in made up shopkeepers private lives than in real world shopkeepers private lives. Nearly all the players i know feel quite similar, so shopping tends to get handle as abstract as the situation allows.

But if you have players with a habit of doing smalltalk with shopkeepers, then it would indeed be wise to somewhat flesh out the shopkeeper.


The tone of this thread suggests that A and C are non-options if you're a 'good DM'.I don't see it. How do ou get to that conclusion ?

Talakeal
2022-05-04, 06:19 PM
I think that's equivalent to the definition of "Railroading" that I use (anytime the GM changes/ignores game state / game physics to force or prevent a particular course of action or outcome, in opposition to player intent and the social contract). So, Agree?

But, more importantly, "railroading" is not actually in any way the topic of this thread. :smallwink:

From past discussions, I thought you were one of the people who equated "authored" games with railroads.

Kyoru sure seems to as well, the OP stats "We keep talking about sandbox and railroad/linear games," so it seems only natural that people are going to want to hammer out what those terms mean before redefining them.



Personally, I disagree with the entire premise, because IMO sandbox games present no choices that "matter". If I want to wander around aimlessly, I can do that in real life. And that is what an actual, fairly run, sandbox is; wandering around hoping to stumble into something important. And most GM's will oblige you in that matter; the PCs always happen to arrive at just the right place and or time to stumble onto something big, but 99/100 times that isn't natural, its the GM forcing an authored element into an emergent experience.

Cheesegear
2022-05-05, 12:13 AM
Personally, I disagree with the entire premise, because IMO sandbox games present no choices that "matter". If I want to wander around aimlessly, I can do that in real life. And that is what an actual, fairly run, sandbox is; wandering around hoping to stumble into something important. And most GM's will oblige you in that matter; the PCs always happen to arrive at just the right place and or time to stumble onto something big, but 99/100 times that isn't natural, its the GM forcing an authored element into an emergent experience.

Emphases mine. Agreed.

Like I said, I envision all 'sandboxes' as simply central train stations. You're still on rails no matter where you go, because the DM is usually if not always going to have something planned because random encounters all day, every day, is usually lame.

You just get to choose which rails you're on, and sometimes - but not always - you have the ability to change tracks before the end of the line. Sometimes you get off at a station, and change trains.

Satinavian
2022-05-05, 01:06 AM
Personally, I disagree with the entire premise, because IMO sandbox games present no choices that "matter". If I want to wander around aimlessly, I can do that in real life. And that is what an actual, fairly run, sandbox is; wandering around hoping to stumble into something important. And most GM's will oblige you in that matter; the PCs always happen to arrive at just the right place and or time to stumble onto something big, but 99/100 times that isn't natural, its the GM forcing an authored element into an emergent experience.

Sandboxes are not for "wandering aimlessly".
Sandboxes are just environments full of places, people, situations. With a good seasoning of conflicts and volatility to serve as levers.

Yes, the volatility is important so that the PCs can change things without being utterly overpowered. But volatility alone does not make a prescribed plot or behavior or story.

Talakeal
2022-05-05, 01:29 AM
Sandboxes are not for "wandering aimlessly".
Sandboxes are just environments full of places, people, situations. With a good seasoning of conflicts and volatility to serve as levers.

Yes, the volatility is important so that the PCs can change things without being utterly overpowered. But volatility alone does not make a prescribed plot or behavior or story.

And how are the players to become involved in said conflicts?

Do you have a third path besides wander around aimlessly and hope to stumble into something or allowing the DM to insert authored content?

Closest I can recall ever seeing are villain games, but those always leave a bad taste in my mouth as players get really salty about reactive antagonists.

Vahnavoi
2022-05-05, 01:54 AM
Apparently we've moved from not understanding what "railroading" is, to not understanding what a "sandbox" is.

I will directly quote the relevant definition from a dictionary:


2: a place, area, or environment that provides opportunities for variation and experimentation in a way suggestive of children playing in a sandbox

: such as
a: a video game or part of a video game in which the player is not constrained to achieving specific goals and has a large degree of freedom to explore, interact with, or modify the game environment.

Wandering around, hoping to stumble upon something important, is a far cry from essence of a "sandbox" and if that's your understanding of a "sandbox game", you wouldn't have a good time playing such games and would have even worse time playing in an actual sandbox.

The actual important feature of sandboxes, both figurative and literal, is that they allow for internally motivated action: the person in the box can choose for themselves what is important and pursue that instead of something externally dictated. Most of the emergent features in the box are a result of that person acting as an author within limits of the box: a castle is build from the sand because that person wanted to make a castle and took necessary actions to do so.

Satinavian
2022-05-05, 02:01 AM
And how are the players to become involved in said conflicts?They learn about if. If you do an exploration sandbox, through their own information gathering/scouting. If not, you give them the simplyfied version at the start of the game as something their characters probably should know about their environment.
Whether they then actually get involved is mostly player decision. If they don't that is fine as well. Then that particular conflict becomes background.

Do you have a third path besides wander around aimlessly and hope to stumble into something or allowing the DM to insert authored content?I don't understand the question. The sandbox and its elements exist. If/what the players do with it or not and where that leads is all up in the air. Complety emergent gameplay. It is a bit like giving children a huge bag of lego bricks. Which ones they use what they build and what they play with what they build cannot be predicted from the outside. Nor do the children have to act aimlessly, they surely soon have an idea what to do when they see all the bricks.

Closest I can recall ever seeing are villain games, but those always leave a bad taste in my mouth as players get really salty about reactive antagonists.Villain games tend to have proactive PCs and reactive environment, but that is only story convention. You can as easily make proactive games about building things up instead of destroying them.

Talakeal
2022-05-05, 02:17 AM
This may be getting a bit off track; my point was that sandbox's inhibit the ability to make meaningful decisions, and that the extra ability to make trivial decisions is not worth the extra effort that everyone at the table has to put in to get anything back.

If you could give me some examples of RPG modules or even video games which allow you to make meaningful decisions without authorial insertions, I would genuinely love to hear about them.



Villain games tend to have proactive PCs and reactive environment, but that is only story convention. You can as easily make proactive games about building things up instead of destroying them.

It isn't about destroying vs. building up; its that reactive conflicts tend to be perceived by the players as coming out of left field to spoil their fun. In my experience, it doesn't matter what the players are doing, if an enemy shows up to stop them, they read it as a screw job that the DM pulled out of his or her behind.

Cheesegear
2022-05-05, 02:40 AM
Apparently we've moved from not understanding what "railroading" is, to not understanding what a "sandbox" is.

Wrong. We still don't agree on to what level the DM's ability to control and dictate the entire world, impinges on the players' agency.

You have one side arguing that literally anything the DM creates, infringes on player agency, and as such framing the definitions of 'railroads' and other words like sandbox around player agency, is a non-starter. Because if you think about it more than not-at-all, the DM controls and dictates the entire world, which effectively controls the choices the players can make. Ergo, players never actually have agency, at least not in the proactive sense. The players only have an array of choices made available to them via the DM (e.g; You have the choice of chocolate or vanilla, but you want peppermint. Sucks to be you.)

As such, true Ermergent gameplay is exceedingly difficult, because most DMs don't really want to make a lot of stuff up at the table. Which means that even if you think you can 'go where you want', the fact has the DM has already decided almost always what is - and isn't - there. This is most strongly evidenced by maps. You can't actually do what you want in a sandbox. You can still only choose to do what the DM has put there. It's still Authored content, by the DM. Outside of the players' agency.

You have the other side seemingly believing that player agency only matters in the scene-by-scene sense. That is, you come across a band of Goblins. You should be able to fight them, talk to them, run away, do nothing, etc. There isn't a fixed conclusion to the scene and the players can choose to do what they want, based on what they think is best and based on what their characters are good at. The players have agency in the sense that they can act and end the scene how they want, since the DM hasn't really planned anything beyond 'you see Goblins' and will narrate whatever comes after based on the players' actions, and not rather a fixed conclusion that they already have.

However the first side then argues 'Who put the Goblins there in the first place? You can only choose to react to the Goblins. You can't choose to not react to the Goblins, because that's the scenario that the DM created' (You can choose to Disengage...From the Goblins. But you are still reacting to the fact that the Goblins are there.). If the debate argument is framed around player agency vs. DM control...Then the DM always wins, so long as the DM is the one determining what scenarios get encountered in the first place. The players don't have agency in what they encounter, only what they do, once they encounter it.

Then we go Macro, back to the map, back to the 'sandbox':

You can go anywhere you want (you have agency...). But you can only go to places the DM has made (...but not really), or will make. Even if a player comes up with an idea, even if a player comes up with a plot hook...The entire world is still bound by the DM's willingness and/or imagination to engage. You can't do what the DM just doesn't have. This is where the definition of sandbox doesn't make sense to the people making the first side, because the environment(s) are still created by the DM, outside the players' agency.

Satinavian
2022-05-05, 02:51 AM
If you could give me some examples of RPG modules or even video games which allow you to make meaningful decisions without authorial insertions, I would genuinely love to hear about them.I'll ignore modules for a moment as most of which i use are out of print and not in English so you can't look them up.

For popular computer games, Minecraft would be an example. It only provides you stuff to engage with, what you do with it or not is on you.

Or, if you want more opposition, how about Europa Universalis 4. No Win condition whatsoever. It is basically you yourself choose a country and choose your own goals to pursue. There are easy goals and hard goals and all the other countries always do stuff as well. There are country missions you could pursue but those are just some optional challenges with rewards. Might be worth doing if you need the reward or for bragging rights, but that is all there is to them. You do what you think is fun to do and chose your own goals and challenges. As a (primarily) single player game it also doesn't care about whether you start super powerful or not.


It isn't about destroying vs. building up; its that reactive conflicts tend to be perceived by the players as coming out of left field to spoil their fun. In my experience, it doesn't matter what the players are doing, if an enemy shows up to stop them, they read it as a screw job that the DM pulled out of his or her behind.Well, my players are different and i am not going into yet another discussion about about your players and table dynamics.

Talakeal
2022-05-05, 03:07 AM
I'll ignore modules for a moment as most of which i use are out of print and not in English so you can't look them up.

For popular computer games, Minecraft would be an example. It only provides you stuff to engage with, what you do with it or not is on you.

Or, if you want more opposition, how about Europa Universalis 4. No Win condition whatsoever. It is basically you yourself choose a country and choose your own goals to pursue. There are easy goals and hard goals and all the other countries always do stuff as well. There are country missions you could pursue but those are just some optional challenges with rewards. Might be worth doing if you need the reward or for bragging rights, but that is all there is to them. You do what you think is fun to do and chose your own goals and challenges. As a (primarily) single player game it also doesn't care about whether you start super powerful or not.


Minecraft takes it one step further than I did; it has no lore, no plot, no story, no meaningful decisions whatsoever. So yeah, perfect example of what I am talking about.

Europa is a bit different in that you are playing as a nation rather than an individual, so its kind of an apples to oranges comparison.

I really was more talking about games that are like somewhat like an RPG in structure; where you are an individual or small group of individuals exploring a world and having adventures of one sort or another.

Satinavian
2022-05-05, 03:18 AM
As such, true Ermergent gameplay is exceedingly difficult, because most DMs don't really want to make a lot of stuff up at the table. Which means that even if you think you can 'go where you want', the fact has the DM has already decided almost always what is - and isn't - there.It is not for every GM, yes. Which is why literally no one in this thread has ever claimed "This is how everyone should run games.".

You can go anywhere you want (you have agency...). But you can only go to places the DM has made (...but not really), or will make. Even if a player comes up with an idea, even if a player comes up with a plot hook...The entire world is still bound by the DM's willingness and/or imagination to engage. You can't do what the DM just doesn't have. This is where the definition of sandbox doesn't make sense to the people making the first side, because the environment(s) are still created by the DM, outside the players' agency.
You are under the misconception that a GM filling a sandbox before play makes the whole game not emergent. That is plainly wrong. Emergence is about what happens, not what is.
The events are not supposed to be player created in emergent gameplay. They are supposed to emerge from player actions and circumstances.

You can think of it as this :

For authored play the GM provides things for the players to do.

For emergent play the GM provides things for the players to engage with.

------------------------------------------

That aside, the GM is not universally the one providing the gameworld. There are many groups using official settings and following canon strictly. Or playing in "the real world but X" with google as setting supplement replacement.
There are also various versions of collaborative worldbuilding where players literally build the world they later want to adventure in.
Or we have the all time classic of rotating GMs sharing a world and a group of PC who do episodic stuff.

@ Tlakeel

If you don't like EU because of nations instead of people, use Crusader Kings from the same publisher.

Or, though a bit less full of options (you probably want mods for more variety and a less bland setting), take Mount & Blade and you are quite close to the regular RPG formula.

Talakeal
2022-05-05, 03:40 AM
It is not for every GM, yes. Which is why literally no one in this thread has ever claimed "This is how everyone should run games.".

You are under the misconception that a GM filling a sandbox before play makes the whole game not emergent. That is plainly wrong. Emergence is about what happens, not what is.
The events are not supposed to be player created in emergent game play. They are supposed to emerge from player actions and circumstances.


For me, its not about which side is better or how it should be done.

I just disagree with the OP saying that "But fans of emergent games want different things - they want their decisions to matter." because in my experience sandbox games have a lot more trivial decisions, but linear games undoubtedly have more decisions that matter.



@ Talakeal

If you don't like EU because of nations instead of people, use Crusader Kings from the same publisher.

Or, though a bit less full of options (you probably want mods for more variety and a less bland setting), take Mount & Blade and you are quite close to the regular RPG formula.

Its not that I don't like EU, its that games that simulate running a nation are fundamentally different and not really relevant to running an NPC, just like racing games or sports games or fishing games aren't really applicable.

Vahnavoi
2022-05-05, 06:44 AM
Minecraft takes it one step further than I did; it has no lore, no plot, no story, no meaningful decisions whatsoever. So yeah, perfect example of what I am talking about.

Now it's clear you don't know what a meaningful choice is.

In a game, a meaningful choice is one that selects between two mutually exclusive game states. And it should be bloody obvious how this applies to building a hut versus a castle versus a working redstone computer. On a more human level, the reason to build a hut versus a castle versus a working redstone computer stems from internal motivation, imagination and skill of a player: the player's desire to do these things is what gives meaning to specific actions they take to achieve these goals.

Minecraft does not need externally dictated lore, plot or story, because the game engine is lenient enough to allow for players to create their own lore, plot and story. Same as a real sandbox. You don't walk to a pile of sand expecting someone to have hidden meaning in the grains. You walk to a pile of sand and build a sand castle because the idea of making one feels meaningful to you.

The same goes a long way to explaining why players, in a sandbox game, might get upset at overt external interference. How would you feel, in a real sandbox, if after hours of building an intricate castle, some mofo came and knocked it over without a warning? It's not that you can't bake adversarial elements into a sandbox game - you can, and most such games do. It just changes the metagame quite a bit, because then it's no longer sufficient for a player to set and follow their own goals, they need to understand goals of other players and how those influence theirs. The more players there are, the more complex it gets.

---

@Cheesegear: that's a new record in talking past me. You say I'm wrong about people not understanding what a sandbox is, then don't even deal with the definition of a sandbox I just gave, and proceed to, based on notion that some people use a definition of railroading I've explicitly called out as bad, work to a conclusion that such people don't understand the definition of a sandbox.

Cheesegear
2022-05-05, 07:11 AM
You are under the misconception that a GM filling a sandbox before play makes the whole game not emergent. That is plainly wrong. Emergence is about what happens, not what is.

Okay.

The DM writes a scenario, and plans for the three most obvious solutions that they can think of:
- If players do [X], then [X1] happens.
- If players do [Y], then [Y1] happens.
- If players do [Z], then [Z1] happens.

The players, encounter the scenario. The most obvious solution [X], is probably a trap. So they go with [Y]. The players use their agency to react to the scenario in a way they think is meaningful...

...It is not meaningful. The DM moves to the authored section marked [Y1] and continues their authored adventure.


They are supposed to emerge from player actions and circumstances.

And many, many, many DMs will always be one step ahead of their own players.

'I can't [spell]!'
Counterspell.
*Shocked Pikachu*

And that's where you come into problems when you describe things so...Generally. The players think that they are making 'emergent choices'...But they simply aren't. The DM often knows what you're going to do, before you do it, and has planned his scenarios accordingly. Written his set pieces accordingly. The players often don't know that they're being countered, 'cause they're simply taking the story as-is. Seriously. Why wouldn't an enemy caster have Counterspell? It makes sense.

'Haha. I bet you weren't expecting me to come through the window!?'
Yes I was...You can tell from all the dead birds on the window sill, that the window is trapped. The Wizard is well aware of opposing Wizards with Crow Familiars and has deliberately set up a trap to stop Familiars from spying through the window. It works just as well against humans.
'This Wizard is obviously paranoid. We'd better be more careful.'
Yes. I am certainly not aware of your playstyle, and what your characters can do. This is all just emergent, amirite?


You can think of it as this :

For authored play the GM provides things for the players to do.

For emergent play the GM provides things for the players to engage with.

I see a distinction without a difference. Especially since you don't provide examples.


@Cheesegear: that's a new record in talking past me. You say I'm wrong about people not understanding what a sandbox is, then don't even deal with the definition of a sandbox I just gave

I don't have a problem with your definition of sandbox. I have a problem with your definition of sandbox, as it pertains to player agency. And my point is that a sandbox can't actually exist in a game with a DM. So talking about a sandbox's definition is a waste of time, because I simply don't believe that such a thing exists, within the realms of giving players actual agency. When talking about Emergent Gameplay, and more specifically Emergent Decisions, a sandbox doesn't actually give that, because all the decisions made inside said sandbox, are being influenced by what the GM has created and/or is willing to do.

I believe railroads exist.
I believe that 'sandboxes' are just more railroads with extra steps and illusionism. Because it's all authored content - it's all DM Fiat.

KorvinStarmast
2022-05-05, 07:26 AM
I'm saying those properties are opposed. Not that they are a top level categorical split. Then perhaps it was all pre poisoned by the railroad/sandbox dichotomy, since that is a related topic.

IOW, my position is that things can be blue, or they can be red. I am not arguing that "blue things vs. red things" is a top-level split by which we should start categorizing.
And things can be purple. That's I think where we may still disagree, but maybe not.

IMO, your strongest point in this discussion has been your point made to me as regards your experiential basis for seeing a distinction in play. The play's the thing, not categorization.
If we (as this discussion has progressed) limit these properties to scenes (or to linked scenes?) then perhaps the distinction you are trying to make comes across better.

Seems to me that your proposed opposed terms are more like a sliding scale, or a zone, than a hard on/off switch.

Hytheter
2022-05-05, 07:30 AM
The DM writes a scenario, and plans for the three most obvious solutions that they can think of:

Stop, you're already wrong.


. And my point is that a sandbox can't actually exist in a game with a DM. So talking about a sandbox's definition is a waste of time, because I simply don't believe that such a thing exists, within the realms of giving players actual agency. When talking about Emergent Gameplay, and more specifically Emergent Decisions, a sandbox doesn't actually give that, because all the decisions made inside said sandbox, are being influenced by what the GM has created and/or is willing to do.

I believe railroads exist.
I believe that 'sandboxes' are just more railroads with extra steps and illusionism. Because it's all authored content - it's all DM Fiat.

I'm sorry that you are incapable of running or even fathoming a sandbox game, but your experience is not universal.

KorvinStarmast
2022-05-05, 07:39 AM
I believe railroads exist.
I believe that 'sandboxes' are just more railroads with extra steps and illusionism. Because it's all authored content - it's all DM Fiat. No, it's not all DM Fiat.

My experience with any number of old school campaigns (as in, Original D&D game and filling in the hexes as you explored the wilderness away from the old ruins and frontier town where we started) includes us going to hexes (we didn't use the Outdoor Survival map, it was a blank map that got filled in as we explored, the DM wasn't into world building so much) and encountering things (since a d6 said that we did - that's RNG, not DM Fiat) and a table roll created an encounter with a large number of pilgrims. (RNG again, not DM Fiat).
It could have been 70 orcs, but the RNG didn't provide that.
And we played out that encounter (scene?) with an eye towards making sure we survived and that we somehow benefitted from that encounter (we got a few of the pilgrims to join us based on the role play between the DM and the players) and then we wandered off to the next hex during the next game day, where we encountered nothing but forest ... but it could have had owlbears, or an evil high priest, or any number of things in there that we might run away from, parley with, fight ... it all emerged from what we encountered.

He had his own key for where ruins or old temples might be, and if we ever found them. It was possible to get lost in the wilderness (we had our hexes on our rough player map; he had 'actual' hexes in case we rolled the "you are lost!" result). Which brings me back to "mapping as you play" being a lost element of trad games that I kind of miss. :smallfrown: (Tomb of Annihilation brings that back a little bit, the hex crawl in a grand wilderness; the group I played it with were not able to grok that style very well, although I loved the nostalgia trip it gave me. The DM did have one of the guides lead us astray ... and a few times we just got lost).

In a different kind of game, Golden Sky Stories, the various things we did to try and cheer up the sad child who our little spirits / Kami met was a result of the players playing off of what the other players did. It was a very different feel to D&D, and all that the facilitator did was describe the child's reaction and choices in response to what the players did or were doing. (And I think that is where the OP is going with emergent play). DM Fiat was absent beyond having the initial conditions established (we all had our pieces on the Go square, to use the Monopoly analogue again).

Satinavian
2022-05-05, 07:48 AM
Okay.

The DM writes a scenario, and plans for the three most obvious solutions that they can think of:
- If players do [X], then [X1] happens.
- If players do [Y], then [Y1] happens.
- If players do [Z], then [Z1] happens.

You can run things this way. But this is not universal.
And i know that this is not universal because i don't run things this way.
No matter how often you tell me that games i run don't exist, it won't convince me. You are just plain wrong.

The way you discribe, you may call it the Cheesegear way if you want, is part of what the OP calls "authored".


I see a distinction without a difference. Especially since you don't provide examples.A couple of years i ran the the "Von eigenen Gnaden" module. That one was meant to be a sandbox, but the authors had had no experience with sandboxes whatsoever so i had to do a lot of extra prep work.

The core theme is that the PCs get handed the power over a small town in a region torn by war and civil war where the overall order had broken down and various warlords, mercenary bands and fortune seekers roamed the land and started to claim little territories. Now the module did provide a map but aside from few exceptions nothing about all the other settlements or about all the different warlords.

So i started to prepare. Settlement for settlement. What was special there, who ruled there, political relations to all the neighbours, little secrets.
For all the warlord as well. Power, ambitions, secrets, plans, troops, enemies and allies, preferred tactics, reasons to like or hate them.

I also prepared a rudimentary economy system and battle system shamelessly stolen from SIFRP because really, the module didn't even have rules for any of that.

Then i prepared some greater, externally triggered events for the region and put those on the timeline.

And... that was all i needed to prepare for the sandboxy part of the campaign.
I never prepared "If PCs do X, X1 happens". I didn't waste my time at all here trying to think about what the players would do with any of that or how i would react to it.

Morgaln
2022-05-05, 07:55 AM
Okay.

The DM writes a scenario, and plans for the three most obvious solutions that they can think of:
- If players do [X], then [X1] happens.
- If players do [Y], then [Y1] happens.
- If players do [Z], then [Z1] happens.

The players, encounter the scenario. The most obvious solution [X], is probably a trap. So they go with [Y]. The players use their agency to react to the scenario in a way they think is meaningful...

...It is not meaningful. The DM moves to the authored section marked [Y1] and continues their authored adventure.



How do you define meaningful?
The simple fact that the players can make different decisions and have the scenario react in different ways makes their decision very much meaningful in my eyes. The GM might have anticipated several possible solutions, but that doesn't change that the outcome depends on what the players choose to do. That is agency. Agency doesn't mean that the GM has no prior idea of what might happen. It means the solution the players come up with affects the direction the scenario proceeds.

Whether this is fully authored or has an emergent component depends on what happens when players come up with solution Q. If the result is Q1, that is an emergent result. If the result of Q is X1, Y1, or Z1, then I wouldn't call it emergent, as there isn't a way to go beyond what the GM has prepared.

So far, several people seem to argue that prepared content = authored and in the reverse, a game is only emergent if there's no prepared content. I don't think that's correct. I think an emergent game is one where the players are not restricted to authored content, but can go beyond it or even skip authored content entirely when their decisions lead into a different direction. As such, I'd consider authored vs. emergent to be a description of what options are available to the players, not which options they choose to take.

Vahnavoi
2022-05-05, 09:35 AM
I don't have a problem with your definition of sandbox. I have a problem with your definition of sandbox, as it pertains to player agency.

You don't have a problem, except you do have a problem. Sense, this does not make.

Player agency is the ability of players to make meaningful decisions, "meaningful" meaning decisions that cause mutually exclusive game states. There is no overarching obstacle preventing a game master from giving players enough agency to set their own objectives, thus facilitating a sandbox game.


And my point is that a sandbox can't actually exist in a game with a DM.

Humbug. It did not apparently occur to you that a game master can hold a game in a literal sandbox, allowing players to shape the sand as they see fit, and use the resulting terrain as a game map.


So talking about a sandbox's definition is a waste of time, because I simply don't believe that such a thing exists, within the realms of giving players actual agency. When talking about Emergent Gameplay, and more specifically Emergent Decisions, a sandbox doesn't actually give that, because all the decisions made inside said sandbox, are being influenced by what the GM has created and/or is willing to do.

I believe railroads exist.
I believe that 'sandboxes' are just more railroads with extra steps and illusionism. Because it's all authored content - it's all DM Fiat.

You have completely failed to establish that sandbox games cannot exist. They do exist as matter of fact, so your belief is false. No-one who has played in a literal sandbox and understands how to design a game that has qualities of one has reason to take you seriously. Having a game master and limits to a game world, do not prevent emergence and player agency anymore than physical boundaries of a sandbox do. The idea that all content in a sandbox is authored by a game master is exactly false - if a player plans a castle for my game, my ability to accept or deny the idea does not in any shape or form mean that I came up with it! The player did! They authored it, and are using the tools I provided to implement it.

Easy e
2022-05-05, 10:23 AM
(RNG again, not DM Fiat).

It could have been 70 orcs, but the RNG didn't provide that.


I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but RNG is DM Fiat. Who makes the RNG table? How do they do it? Even if they just decide to use a basic encounter/exploration table from a pre-made book it is the DM choosing by Fiat what encounter tables to use.

Also, in the Golden Sky stories example; I think you are right that it is an example of emergent play. However, it was still ultimately up to the DM how the child reacts to any given Kami's action. Sure, as players you were all building off of each other, which seems to fit the definition of emergent; but ultimately it was still up to DM Fiat how the child reacted to your actions.

Therefore, any GM led RPG is based on the premise of illusion of choice. "You can do anything you want in an RPG!" Except you really can't. However, many people feel that "illusionism is bad" and do not realize that the entire GM led RPG experience is premised off this thing they consider bad. I am not saying this is you Korvin, it is something I see and read on forums about RPGs a lot.




That being said Korvin, I am 100% with you when you talk about "The Play is the thing".

I am also 100% aligned with you that there is a continuum/spectrum in GM led RPGs from authored to emergent and back again during every game. The play evolves and swings from these two poles as it progresses. Therefore, categorization of a "game" and telling players "what kind of game it is" can't really happen, since every interaction swings between these two poles.

Tanarii
2022-05-05, 10:24 AM
Player agency is the ability of players to make meaningful decisions, "meaningful" meaning decisions that cause mutually exclusive game states.
You left out "for what their characters want to try and do".

Player agency is only about what their characters are going to try to do, not content or narrative controls. And it's only about attempting, not fiat resolution by the player to their satisfaction.


I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but RNG is DM Fiat.No, it is not. One of the entire purposes of using RNG is that it's NOT GM Fiat.

Quertus
2022-05-05, 10:25 AM
Then perhaps it was all pre poisoned by the railroad/sandbox dichotomy, since that is a related topic.

Sigh. If there was a dichotomy, it would be between "Sandbox" and "Linear", not "Sandbox" and "Railroad". At least as I understand the usage of the terms.


From past discussions, I thought you were one of the people who equated "authored" games with railroads.

Not gonna lie, I did equate "Linear" with "Railroad" when I joined the playground. :smallredface:

I'd like to think I've learned and grown since then.


Kyoru sure seems to as well, the OP stats "We keep talking about sandbox and railroad/linear games," so it seems only natural that people are going to want to hammer out what those terms mean before redefining them.

Unfortunately, that last bit about what people will try to do is true, despite it being exactly what I believe @Kyoryu is attempting to avoid. :smallfrown:


Personally, I disagree with the entire premise, because IMO sandbox games present no choices that "matter". If I want to wander around aimlessly, I can do that in real life. And that is what an actual, fairly run, sandbox is; wandering around hoping to stumble into something important. And most GM's will oblige you in that matter; the PCs always happen to arrive at just the right place and or time to stumble onto something big, but 99/100 times that isn't natural, its the GM forcing an authored element into an emergent experience.


And how are the players to become involved in said conflicts?

Do you have a third path besides wander around aimlessly and hope to stumble into something or allowing the DM to insert authored content?

Closest I can recall ever seeing are villain games, but those always leave a bad taste in my mouth as players get really salty about reactive antagonists.


This may be getting a bit off track; my point was that sandbox's inhibit the ability to make meaningful decisions, and that the extra ability to make trivial decisions is not worth the extra effort that everyone at the table has to put in to get anything back.

If you could give me some examples of RPG modules or even video games which allow you to make meaningful decisions without authorial insertions, I would genuinely love to hear about them.




It isn't about destroying vs. building up; its that reactive conflicts tend to be perceived by the players as coming out of left field to spoil their fun. In my experience, it doesn't matter what the players are doing, if an enemy shows up to stop them, they read it as a screw job that the DM pulled out of his or her behind.


Minecraft takes it one step further than I did; it has no lore, no plot, no story, no meaningful decisions whatsoever. So yeah, perfect example of what I am talking about.

Europa is a bit different in that you are playing as a nation rather than an individual, so its kind of an apples to oranges comparison.

I really was more talking about games that are like somewhat like an RPG in structure; where you are an individual or small group of individuals exploring a world and having adventures of one sort or another.


For me, its not about which side is better or how it should be done.

I just disagree with the OP saying that "But fans of emergent games want different things - they want their decisions to matter." because in my experience sandbox games have a lot more trivial decisions, but linear games undoubtedly have more decisions that matter.



Its not that I don't like EU, its that games that simulate running a nation are fundamentally different and not really relevant to running an NPC, just like racing games or sports games or fishing games aren't really applicable.

Wow. OK. Whew. Um... Hmmm...

Harry Potter. Everyone knows Harry Potter, right?

So, suppose a GM were to run Harry Potter as a Linear ("Authored") game. All the beats from the movies are already set in stone; nothing the PCs do can change them. The actions the PCs take "matter" (in universe) to "stop Voldy from taking over the world", but don't really matter OOC, as Voldy will be stopped in the end no matter what they do. Now, in a "Branching Linear" game, then the actions might matter OOC, too, as "victory" might not be guaranteed.

In a Harry Potter Sandbox ("Emergent" game)? Well, the default end, if the PCs weren't there, is "Voldy takes over the world". Thus, if the PCs / players so choose, the extent that their actions matter might well be an equal "stop Voldy from taking over the world". Or it might be "Join forces with Voldy, share the world". Or it might be "destroy the date rape society of magical Britain". Or the PCs actions might have importance on the level of "get Snape (and Filch) fired". Or "collect, study, and reproduce the Deathly Hallows, to create new age of Empowerment for Magical Britain". There's a lot more that the PCs could do in a Harry Potter Sandbox (some of which might be more important than what little the Linear "stop Voldy from taking over the world" truly matters).

So, Imagine that you were given the power of a D&D 20th level Wizard. And before you stood portals into all your favorite shows / books / fiction - Harry Potter, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, whatever. You got to choose one to enter as a self-insert powerhouse, to change the story.

Total Sandbox.

Your choices could matter a lot, no?

So I'm... not sure where your idea that your choices don't matter in a Sandbox.

Now, sometimes, *you* don't matter - your GM has forced you to be a level 1 nobody in the middle of an epic tale that is above your character's pay grade. And that's just dumb. So look at a Sandbox from the PoV of a 20th level D&D Wizard, and see if you can still tell me with a straight face that your choices don't matter. And that you can't have more of these meaningful choices than were presented by a Linear plot.

(And, yes, I think Minecraft is a bad example, because there aren't "plots" to interact with - or even the ability to really create "plots" of your own. Actions in Minecraft matter about as much as in "Cookie Clicker", IMO. Doesn't keep me from loving Minecraft, btw, but it's not exactly my go-to for talking about making actions "matter".)


I still think the planned/unplanned dichotomy is the most significant new idea about this stuff (noting this is about the pre-planning of decisions about what will happen, not 'any form of game prep') The player vs GM control of direction doesn't seem particularly different than other older terminology, neither does any of the agency stuff.

But the idea that one might want a game where people intentionally avoid thinking about 'what is likely to happen' or 'what am I going to do' in advance is interesting, and it resonates with my experience that the gameplay of planning and then executing a plan feels fundamentally different than decision-making under surprise conditions.

I also like that in that framing, it's not a GM vs players thing - anyone at the table can contribute to an authored or emergent mindset. The paranoid divination wizard for example is an archetype that basically pushes (this sense of) authored mindset hard, requiring things to be predetermined far in advance of when they demand a reaction. So taking it that way, you can apply this to GM-less games too. I mentioned Microscope before as pushing what I felt was characteristic of emergence, but we could design an authored mindset version of that game that does encourage discussion and negotiation in advance before players define their events and scenes and such.

Huh. I guess, since the only value I find in being a GM, is that the players will take the story places that I didn't plan (otherwise, I may as well just be writing single-author fiction), that piece is kinda "meh" to me. Old Hat.

Actually, I don't even view that as different from the old terminology. But, then again, I don't take "Authored vs Emergent" to care about being fundamentally different from the old terminology, except with regard to being new terms, untainted by previous association. Like how they rebranded... uh... things (darn senility). Like "Hate" to "Patriotism" or "Rebels" to "Freedom Fighters" or whatnot.

Still, if the notion of "where the PCs actions take us" is something novel for you to discuss, by all means, discuss it. But I don't feel like there's a significant difference in how that plays out in "Authored vs Emergent" than in "Linear vs Sandbox".

Now, discussing how divinations about the future affect planned/unplanned pathing could be interesting. Because it's not quite as... trivial a relationship as you've drawn.

For example, I could run an unplanned game where divinations could return things like, "(unless you act to change the outcome) the Cult of Barney will successfully summon the daemon dinosaur in 3 weeks time" or "(unless you change from your current course) Assassin Dragons will find you in 17 hours". Obviously, divinations about the present would be trivially easy even in an unplanned game.

Easy e
2022-05-05, 10:37 AM
No, it is not. One of the entire purposes of using RNG is that it's NOT GM Fiat.

Oh, than perhaps you can explain to me who decides what tables you roll on for that RNG?

Who interprets what a result on a RNG chart means in a game that is a GM led RPG?

If it is an encounter, who plays the NPCs in the encounter?



RNG is a thinly disguised GM Fiat with just enough smoke and mirrors for players to believe the illusion of RPGs in the first place. RNG, Rules, Statblocks are all there to facilitate the idea that the game is fair to the players, and to obscure the fact that they are all run on GM Fiat.

And that is what makes RPGs great! It is their strength, not a weakness! It is a feature and not a bug!
The GM Fiat is what allows the game to move with the needs of the players at any given moment.

PhoenixPhyre
2022-05-05, 10:53 AM
Oh, than perhaps you can explain to me who decides what tables you roll on for that RNG?

Who interprets what a result on a RNG chart means in a game that is a GM led RPG?

If it is an encounter, who plays the NPCs in the encounter?



RNG is a thinly disguised GM Fiat with just enough smoke and mirrors for players to believe the illusion of RPGs in the first place. RNG, Rules, Statblocks are all there to facilitate the idea that the game is fair to the players, and to obscure the fact that they are all run on GM Fiat.

And that is what makes RPGs great! It is their strength, not a weakness! It is a feature and not a bug!
The GM Fiat is what allows the game to move with the needs of the players at any given moment.

Fiat doesn't mean "any decision a GM makes". It means things that happen only because the GM decides they do, without reference to anything else. Fiat literally means "a decree", and has strong implications of not depending on the facts on the ground (it may or may not). It's basically "because I said so". So NPCs following pre-established characterization? Not fiat at all. Deciding what happens in the world based on extrapolation from current events? Not fiat at all. Deciding that an NPC who should (by all prior characterization) is going to be a stickler about this one thing because doing otherwise would break the plot? Fiat. DM breaking a logjam/player deadlock by arbitrarily picking one side? Fiat (although sometimes necessary fiat). Deciding that something that ignores all established facts happens? Fiat.

Fiat isn't necessarily bad, but saying that every decision a DM makes is pure fiat is stretching the word into meaninglessness due to overinclusion. For example, sticking with a pre-established/pre-committed decision such as "we'll use random encounters" is not fiat. Violating that pre-committment because they felt like it? That would be fiat.

D&D-likes run on DM decisions, but not all decisions are fiat. Some are, but not all. And in a game where people are mostly in the Emergent mindset, fiat decisions are kept to a minimum.

As a side note, most of what players do is arbitrary in the same sort of way. There's nothing forcing them to stick to their established characterizations or to play their characters in a particular way (at least in D&D). So they do get to make arbitrary, "because I said so" decisions. They can react with suspicion despite rolling very low on their Wisdom (Insight) or Sense Motive check. That's the right of the players. So players use fiat as much as a (n emergent-mindset) DM does.

OldTrees1
2022-05-05, 10:59 AM
Oh, than perhaps you can explain to me who decides what tables you roll on for that RNG?

Who interprets what a result on a RNG chart means in a game that is a GM led RPG?

If it is an encounter, who plays the NPCs in the encounter?



RNG is a thinly disguised GM Fiat with just enough smoke and mirrors for players to believe the illusion of RPGs in the first place. RNG, Rules, Statblocks are all there to facilitate the idea that the game is fair to the players, and to obscure the fact that they are all run on GM Fiat.

And that is what makes RPGs great! It is their strength, not a weakness! It is a feature and not a bug!
The GM Fiat is what allows the game to move with the needs of the players at any given moment.

The GM does not have control over the RNG. (I don't have telekinesis to control the die in motion)
The GM does have control over deciding which outputs from the RNG would result in which results in the game. (I can choose which chart or even make my own)

As a result the GM can choose how much control to retain vs how much to grant to the RNG.

If we accept the GM can create a "rock" they won't let themselves be able to "lift", then we can differentiate between what the GM can control in practice (every "rock" they let themselves be able to "lift") from what the GM can't control in practice (every "rock" they won't let themselves be able to "lift"). The term "GM Fiat" is often used in this narrower context and thus often only refers to what the GM allows themselves to Fiat.

Given that context, the RNG is not GM Fiat, but GM Fiat can be used to tune how much or little the RNG impacts the game.

Thrudd
2022-05-05, 11:16 AM
It almost feels like trolling is happening here. How are we continually talking past each other, when many people have very clearly defined the relevant terms and supported their positions, only to have someone go back and disagree with the definition of the core terms again, instead of adopting a broadly agreed on definition so that the debate can move forward productively? Seemingly in order to make a bad-faith argument in favor of certain practices that many people complain about, by continually trying to equate those practices with ones people don't complain about via intentionally overbroad definitions of terms that nobody else agrees with...

Of course, not everyone is doing this, just a couple people, but still...
thou dost protest too much, me thinks.

Composer99
2022-05-05, 11:31 AM
Apropos of meaningful-ness:
It is a poor line of attack on the concept of emergent play or sandbox game styles, frankly.

A game such as Minecraft would not have such enduring popularity if players didn't find the gameplay experience to be meaningful - or use mods to continue to do so when they get bored of the base gameplay experience. The fact that any given player doesn't find Minecraft gameplay to be meaningful is frankly neither here nor there for the people who do, and vice-versa.

So it is with sandbox play in a table-top RPG.

Apropos of GM fiat:
Again, I am going to appeal to the idea of emergent play as having to do with "playing to find out what happens next".

Without disagreeing that the DM/GM chooses what random encounter tables to use (whether in a DMG, in a third-party publication, in an adventure, or one of their own devising) and how to interpret the results - both of which I'll agree fall comfortably within the realm of "GM fiat" - the point of using such resources is that they make the gameplay experience more emergent, because the DM/GM - just like the players - is playing to find out what happens next.

The players are exploring a dungeon and the DM rolls once every hour to see if there's an encounter.
- Does the DM know there will be an encounter? No. They're playing to find out what happens next.
- If an encounter is rolled, the DM rolls on a random encounter table. Does the DM know what will be encountered before rolling? No - only the set of things that can be encountered and the probability of each thing.
- Unless the previously-established fiction dictates an obvious reaction of the thing encountered to the player characters (a patrol of goblins in a base the PCs are raiding are going to be hostile, for instance), the DM might roll a reaction roll to find out how the thing reacts - another unknown.
- Depending on the situation, the way the PCs react is also unknown (even if the DM can make educated guesses).

The players are exploring a wilderness, and at the start of the adventuring day, the DM rolls to see how many encounters there are (which could be encounters with creatures, obstacles, or hazards). If the number is more than zero, the DM rolls to see what is encountered and when during the day that the encounter takes place.
- Does the DM know what will be encountered before rolling? No - only the set of things that can be encountered and the probability of each thing.
- Likewise, how the thing that is encountered reacts to the player characters (if it is capable of doing so) is unknown - requiring a reaction roll - if it isn't dictated by the fiction that is already established.
- Likewise, how the player characters choose to proceed is unknown.

So again, it seems needlessly and un-constructively reductionist to lump all forms of GM conduct into a single "GM fiat" bucket: there's plenty of daylight between "inviting the players to participate in the shared construction of the fictional adventures of the protagonist PCs even when you as GM have principal responsibility and authority over such construction" (regardless of how emergent or not the gameplay is) and "the players are effectively actors reading from a script or an audience who occasionally participate in your story by rolling dice", and there's daylight still between "the players are effectively actors/audience and they know and agree to taking part in this way" and "the players are effectively actors/audience and you the GM have deceived them into thinking otherwise".

kyoryu
2022-05-05, 11:56 AM
I'll probably repsond to more of the thread later.



Wow. OK. Whew. Um... Hmmm...

Harry Potter. Everyone knows Harry Potter, right?

So, suppose a GM were to run Harry Potter as a Linear ("Authored") game. All the beats from the movies are already set in stone; nothing the PCs do can change them. The actions the PCs take "matter" (in universe) to "stop Voldy from taking over the world", but don't really matter OOC, as Voldy will be stopped in the end no matter what they do. Now, in a "Branching Linear" game, then the actions might matter OOC, too, as "victory" might not be guaranteed.

In a Harry Potter Sandbox ("Emergent" game)? Well, the default end, if the PCs weren't there, is "Voldy takes over the world". Thus, if the PCs / players so choose, the extent that their actions matter might well be an equal "stop Voldy from taking over the world". Or it might be "Join forces with Voldy, share the world". Or it might be "destroy the date rape society of magical Britain". Or the PCs actions might have importance on the level of "get Snape (and Filch) fired". Or "collect, study, and reproduce the Deathly Hallows, to create new age of Empowerment for Magical Britain". There's a lot more that the PCs could do in a Harry Potter Sandbox (some of which might be more important than what little the Linear "stop Voldy from taking over the world" truly matters).

A good analogy. Even if the game was really "about" stopping Voldy (I think an Emergent game can have a goal/direction, provided everybody buys into it), how they do it would likely be very different than in the books.


Now, sometimes, *you* don't matter - your GM has forced you to be a level 1 nobody in the middle of an epic tale that is above your character's pay grade.

Generally poor GMing, I'd argue. Players should be dealing with events of a scope they can influence, as a general rule. Even if they're caught up in larger events, there should be smaller scope items in those events that they can influence.


(And, yes, I think Minecraft is a bad example, because there aren't "plots" to interact with - or even the ability to really create "plots" of your own. Actions in Minecraft matter about as much as in "Cookie Clicker", IMO. Doesn't keep me from loving Minecraft, btw, but it's not exactly my go-to for talking about making actions "matter".)

I get what you're saying. The world in Minecraft doesn't really react to what you're doing.


Actually, I don't even view that as different from the old terminology. But, then again, I don't take "Authored vs Emergent" to care about being fundamentally different from the old terminology, except with regard to being new terms, untainted by previous association. Like how they rebranded... uh... things (darn senility). Like "Hate" to "Patriotism" or "Rebels" to "Freedom Fighters" or whatnot.

Well, there's a few reasons:


The old terms are poisoned
Linear isn't actually right - you can have a heavily authored game that isn't linear at all. All linear games are authored, but not all authored games are linear
Sandbox isn't right - it contains a lot of implications of "no inherent goal, nothing occurs without PCs" that isn't accurate. That style of game exists, but not all emergent games are that style
Authored speaks to the value of the style - specifically, the ability to have carefully crafted, bespoke content.
Emergent speaks to the value of the style - the ability to have an impact on the world, and see the world react and change as a result



Fiat doesn't mean "any decision a GM makes". It means things that happen only because the GM decides they do, without reference to anything else. Fiat literally means "a decree", and has strong implications of not depending on the facts on the ground (it may or may not). It's basically "because I said so". So NPCs following pre-established characterization? Not fiat at all. Deciding what happens in the world based on extrapolation from current events? Not fiat at all. Deciding that an NPC who should (by all prior characterization) is going to be a stickler about this one thing because doing otherwise would break the plot? Fiat. DM breaking a logjam/player deadlock by arbitrarily picking one side? Fiat (although sometimes necessary fiat). Deciding that something that ignores all established facts happens? Fiat.

The GM has input into all events. That does not make all events fiat. If only the GM has input into the events, then they are fiat.

(It's fairly common for GMs to put their thumb on the scale more heavily than they realize - how to avoid that is an interesting topic in and of itself.

Fiat isn't necessarily bad, but saying that every decision a DM makes is pure fiat is stretching the word into meaninglessness due to overinclusion. For example, sticking with a pre-established/pre-committed decision such as "we'll use random encounters" is not fiat. Violating that pre-committment because they felt like it? That would be fiat.


D&D-likes run on DM decisions, but not all decisions are fiat. Some are, but not all. And in a game where people are mostly in the Emergent mindset, fiat decisions are kept to a minimum.

Exactly. The argument also seems to be "well, GMs technically have unlimited power, so if they have any input in a decision, nothing is stopping them from completely ignoring all other input". Which is technically true. But it's also technically true that they could just randomly punch everyone at the table. But they don't, so saying that GMs just all punch people at the table is false. So is saying that GMs run everything by fiat just because they technically could


As a side note, most of what players do is arbitrary in the same sort of way. There's nothing forcing them to stick to their established characterizations or to play their characters in a particular way (at least in D&D). So they do get to make arbitrary, "because I said so" decisions. They can react with suspicion despite rolling very low on their Wisdom (Insight) or Sense Motive check. That's the right of the players. So players use fiat as much as a (n emergent-mindset) DM does.

Probably a side topic, but rolls shouldn't dictate behavior unless it's literal mind control. And even that I prefer to be more soft-control stuff rather than Dominate-level.

A "Sense Motive" failure shouldn't indicate that you're an idiot. You can still be suspicious. It just indicates that you didn't get any tells/etc. from them.

KorvinStarmast
2022-05-05, 12:36 PM
Again, I am going to appeal to the idea of emergent play as having to do with "playing to find out what happens next".
While I agree with this, I find once again the term GM Fiat (which you included inaccurately as I see it) to be loaded, badly defined/understood, and not productive. I think Phoenix did a bit better of a job handling that area of what a GM/DM does.
kyoryu's summary was IMO helpful:

The GM has input into all events. That does not make all events fiat.
Put more bluntly: just because a GM does it does not make that choice GM fiat. GM fiat is a subset (and in my experience an edge case) of all GM activity.